science wire

The proportion of English adults who smoke cigarettes but don't smoke every day has increased over the past 20 years, while the proportion that are motivated to quit smoking has fallen, according to a new study led by UCL researchers.

Researchers at UCL and the Francis Crick Institute have embarked on a study to establish a causal link between air pollution and neurodegeneration. The new project, called the R ole of Air Pollution in Dementia ( RAPID), will examine the effect of tiny pollutant particles on the body's immune response and subsequent disease development.

Visit and follow our new SharePoint site to keep up to date with UCL-s Inclusive Environments Action Plan - our commitment to creating environments that are inclusive, welcoming and accessible to everyone in our community.

A new digital platform reveals the thoughts and discoveries of British chemist and inventor Sir Humphry Davy for the first time in a project involving UCL's Professor Frank James.

A range of barriers prevent disadvantaged children in England from taking up their entitlement to 15 hours of funded early education, but national and local action could change this, concludes a major new report involving UCL researchers.

A new world record in wireless transmission, promising faster and more reliable wireless communications, has been set by researchers from UCL. The team successfully sent data over the air at a speed of 938 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) over a record frequency range of 5'150 Gigahertz (GHz). This speed is up to 9,380 times faster than the best average 5G download speed in the UK, which is currently 100 Megabits per second (Mb/s) or over 1 .

Cervical cancer patients were significantly more likely to be alive and cancer-free after five years when given a short course of chemotherapy prior to chemoradiation, finds a clinical trial led by researchers from UCL and UCLH.

A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool developed by researchers at UCL and UCLH can analyse scans more quickly than experienced neurologists and provide greater patient-personalised detail to aid treatment.

The European Space Agency's Euclid space mission has revealed the first piece of its great map of the Universe, showing the capabilities of the spacecraft's massive optical camera which was designed and built by a UCL-led team.

A new clinical trial for children with an aggressive type of blood cancer, led by researchers at UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), will run alongside an adult clinical trial for the first time, with the hope of developing more targeted and effective treatments.

Relaxing its restrictions on family size would make it more difficult for China to achieve its goal to be carbon neutral by 2060, according to a new study by UCL researchers. The paper, published in Nature Climate Change , is the first research to analyse the impact of a country's population policies on its future carbon emissions.

Visit and follow our new SharePoint site to keep up to date with our progress towards creating more inclusive and accessible environments at UCL UCL is committed to creating environments that are inclusive, welcoming and accessible to everyone in our community.

Sustainable development goals for water quality will not be met without the involvement of citizen scientists, argue an international team led by a UCL researcher, in a new policy brief. The policy brief and attached technical brief are published by Earthwatch Europe on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)-coordinated World Water Quality Alliance that has supported citizen science projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Sierra Leone.

Find information and quick contacts below for how to get help in an emergency situation, how to report crimes, what support you can access and some general guidance on staying safe during your time as a student.

Toddlers in the UK obtain nearly half (47%) of their calories from ultra-processed foods (UPFs), and this rises to 59% by the age of seven, according to a new study led by UCL researchers.

Over 1.5 billion objects in the Milky Way have been mapped in a project involving UCL researchers. Over the course of 13 years, the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey and its extension, the VVV eXtended survey (VVVX), observed the central regions of the Milky Way. The surveys used VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy), a European Southern Observatory (ESO) facility in Chile, with 420 nights of observation capturing approximately 200,000 images, generating 500 terabytes of scientific data.

The number of adults vaping in England who have never regularly smoked has increased sharply since 2021, when disposable e-cigarettes first became popular, according to a new study by UCL researchers. The study, published in Lancet Public Health and funded by Cancer Research UK, estimated that, as of April 2024, about one million adults who had never regularly smoked now vaped in England, a sevenfold increase since 2021, with most of them vaping daily and over a sustained period.

A UCL engineer, who designed and built his own electric motorbike, is the first person to complete two of the UK's most historic motoring trials, the Edinburgh Trial and the Land's End Trial, with an electric vehicle of any kind.

Structural racism affects the health and wellbeing of ethnic minority group communities in London and contributes to avoidable and unfair inequalities between ethnic groups, finds a new report published by the UCL Institute of Health Equity (IHE). Structural Racism, Ethnicity and Health Inequalities in London reviews both published and unpublished reports, materials and research, as well as health and social determinants data.

The European Space Agency's Plato satellite, which will search for Earth-like planets orbiting the habitable zone of stars, is a step closer to launch after a UCL-led team delivered key electronics for the mission.