science wire

Sylvia Jones, headteacher at Valentines High School in Redbridge, north east London, has been appointed Principal of the new UCL Academy, and will take up the post in September 2010.

The exceptionally well preserved dinosaur, named Linheraptor exquisitus, is the first near-complete skeleton of its kind to be found in the Gobi desert since 1972, and will help scientists work out the appearance of other closely related dinosaur species. Linheraptor is in the Dromaeosauridae family of the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs and lived during the Late Cretaceous period.

UCL scientists and surgeons have led a revolutionary operation to transplant a new trachea into a child and use the child's own stem cells to rebuild the airway in the body.

Taking the re-examination of the Small Press Collection of rare magazines housed at UCL as its theme, this event gives visitors the chance to engage with the spirit of the alternative 'avant-garde' press, re-visiting early texts that straddle the divide between art and poetry ?

That's the intriguing question at the heart of a research project investigating whether everyday workplace activities carried out by human beings could be harnessed and converted into useful electrical energy.

We would like a representative group of women, men and transgender staff at all grades and across all faculties to participate in this review.

After the 7/7 bombings in 2005 a group of clinical psychologists targeted nearly a thousand survivors of the attacks by painstakingly compiling hospital treatment records, police witness files and referrals from GPs. The need for this new method of reaching potential patients was evident after results showed that only 4% of patients contacted by the programme had been referred for treatment by their GPs ? the traditional pathway to mental heath care.

Laura Valentini (UCL Legal and Political Theory) has won the prestigious Sir Ernest Barker Prize of the UK Political Studies Association for Best Dissertation in Political Theory.

Fourth-year medical student Andrew Lewis describes ten days he spent in Nagpur, India, that changed the lives of 104 children with cleft palates.

Researchers from UCL?s Institute of Ophthalmology say what we can and can?t see in our peripheral vision may not be the result of a random process.

For almost 600 years, the printed book has provided mankind with education, information and entertainment, yet today the supremacy of Gutenberg's technology seems under threat.

Researchers from UCL's Institute of Ophthalmology say what we can and can't see in our peripheral vision may not be the result of a random process. As you read this, you may notice that the word directly in front of you is clear, but all the surrounding words are hard to decipher. For most people, this effect ? known as 'crowding' ? is not a problem.

Professor David Becker (UCL Cell and Developmental Biology) is one of seven  finalists nominated for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's 2010 Innovator of the Year Award competition.

Five more international researchers have been awarded the 2009 Newton Fellowships to undertake two years of research at UCL bringing the total to 13 ? more than any other institution.

The country needs a radical rethink of its approach to managing land and land use, according to a major report co-authored by a UCL professor.

UCL's Deafness, Cognition and Language research centre is part of a project to improve early diagnosis and management of dementia among Deaf people who use British Sign Language.

Students from the UCL Slade School of Fine Art took up residence in the windows of Heal's flagship store in February to create a unique piece of retail theatre.

UCL is hosting a free festival of astronomy for schools, families and the general public  as part of National Science and Engineering Week in March. Your Universe will show how UCL scientists are contributing to the advancement of our knowledge, from discovering extra-solar planets to unravelling the mystery of dark energy.

Could enlightened urban planning and design help us re-imagine our cities as tapestries of green urban space ripe for agricultural development?

The theatre is hosting the annual student season, when UCL students and academic departments produce productions and events relevant to the university community.

Researchers from UCL have analysed millions of Oyster Card journeys in a bid to understand how, why and where we travel in London.

The UCL Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science (JDICS) is the first university department in the world devoted specifically to reducing crime.

The review ? Fair Society, Healthy Lives ? proposes new ways to improve everyone's health and reduce inequalities that it describes as 'unfair and unjust?.

The session filmed was a survey undertaken by UCL archaeologists (including students from the Institute of Archaeology) recording the remains of a wooden warship that had been broken up at Charlton on the Thames foreshore.

The inaugural five-year review of the UCL Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women's Health (IfWH), conducted by an international panel of experts, has found that the Institute is now starting to rival the best European institutions of its kind. The independent reviewing panel praised the IfWH as a unique institution in the UK, which is producing research of international standing.

Professor Philip Schofield has spent more than 20 years studying the life and work of the English jurist, philosopher and legal and social reformer Jeremy Bentham, whose name is intimately connected to UCL.

Graham Scambler (UCL Infection & Population Health), Professor of Medical Sociology, began the symposium, held on 26 January 2010, by outlining the concepts of stigma and deviance, and the discourses around stigma and sex workers. He identified the heterogeneity of sex worker careers and issues surrounding regulation.

Professor Myra Bluebond-Langner has become the UK's first chair of paediatric palliative care at the UCL Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

They have helped to develop the Virtual Disaster Viewer (VDV), a unique web portal that aid agencies rely on to target emergency food and medical supplies, prioritise repairs to infrastructure, and plan reconstruction and recovery.

The MPs? expenses scandal has shown the naivety of trusting our politicians to display noble conduct, writes UCL postgraduate student James Shafe.

Sophia publishes work by current UCL staff and graduate students. Editor Ed Long (UCL CoMPLEX) describes the articles on offer: ?The global economic crisis and the assorted expenses scandals of the past year have gradually engendered a rather penny-pinching culture, with the spotlight frequently fixed on the public sector.

Engineer Tal Golesworthy was suffering from a defect in his aorta ? the main artery for carrying oxygenated blood ? that left it in danger of splitting.

Dr Mark Lythgoe (UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging) will reveal why the pictures that have really changed the world are not those from history or art but those from the medical profession. 'Images that see inside our bodies, into our very cells, have had a bigger impact on society than the photographic or artistic image.' Over the course of the series Dr Lythgoe will look at the images that have changed lives, culture, history and politics; those that have affected our opinions and made us decide what's right and wrong.