science wire

A new construction biomaterial that uses living microorganisms to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has been developed by a UCL graduate student and colleagues.

Looking for a good holiday read? We find the best books to pack with you this summer, from classic fiction to the most exciting books coming out of UCL! With summer well underway, it's time to find a shady spot, sit back and read a fantastic book.

The newly announced Ariel Data Challenge 2024, led by UCL researchers, is calling all data scientists, astronomers, and AI enthusiasts to help uncover the atmospheres of planets outside the solar system.

Girls are more likely to worry about climate change and engage more in teaching on the topic than boys, according to research led by UCL.

Writing in The Conversation, PhD candidate Alice Plebe (UCL Computer Science), argues that new AI systems with language capabilities could be key to making driverless cars reason and behave more like human drivers.

Public health interventions that tackle dementia risk factors could yield as much as £4bn in savings in England by reducing dementia rates and helping people to live longer and healthier, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity , shows that interventions - such as reformulating food products to reduce sugar and salt intake, introducing low emission zones to improve air quality in cities, and minimum alcohol unit pricing to reduce drinking - could have extensive benefits beyond just the health outcomes they are directly targeting.

Addressing 14 modifiable risk factors, starting in childhood and continuing throughout life, could prevent or delay nearly half of dementia cases, according to a new report led by UCL researchers.

Baroness Gillian Merron, the Health Minister responsible for life sciences and innovation toured some of UCL's life sciences facilities to see first-hand how research is helping to tackle some of the world's biggest health challenges.

Today, Lesotho has few natural lakes despite receiving some of the greatest rainfall in southern Africa.

The number of adults in England who report vaping for more than six months has increased substantially from around one in 80 in 2013 to one in 10 in 2023, according to a new study led by UCL researchers.

A drug commonly used to treat cystic fibrosis improved outcomes for patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia and could be used to treat other respiratory infections, according to clinical trial results from researchers at UCL, UCLH and the Francis Crick Institute.

Two whole adult human hearts, one healthy and one diseased, have been imaged in unprecedented detail by researchers from UCL and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), providing an invaluable resource for better understanding cardiovascular disease. The study, published in Radiology , is an atlas of the human heart that captures the anatomical structure of the whole organ down to 20 micrometres - half the width of a human hair.

Housing lone children in Home Office child hotels, as occurred between 2021 and January 2024, increased the risks of trafficking and exploitation, according to a new report by UCL researchers working with ECPAT UK.

An international team involving UCL researchers has shed light on Earth's earliest ecosystem, showing that within a few hundred million years of planetary formation, life on Earth was already flourishing. Everything alive today derives from a single common ancestor known affectionately as LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor).

Daily sugar intake fell by 11g - equivalent to two and a half teaspoons - in adults in the year after the introduction of the UK's 'sugar tax' in 2018, finds a new study involving a UCL researcher. By the end of the first year of the sugar tax roll-out, daily sugar consumption also fell by 5g in children.

Writing in The Conversation, Professor Stephen Shennan (UCL Archaeology) what may have caused the decimation of Neolithic farmers 5,200 years ago. Around 5,200 years ago, plague was not just present but common in six generations of one Swedish family, according to a  new study. The researchers analysed both the ancient DNA of these people's skeletal remains and the pathogens that left traces in them.

Writing in The Conversation, Professors Mark Maslin, David Thornalley and Dr Jack Wharton's (UCL Geography) new research has found the Gulf Stream, which carries warm water northwards through the Atlantic, was stronger and deeper 20,000 years ago than it is today. Twenty thousand years ago the world was locked into  a great ice age.

Finding a scientific explanation of subjective awareness means accepting that biology and culture work together to shape how brains evolve, write Professor David Oakley (UCL Psychology and Language Sciences) and Professor Peter Halligan of Cardiff University in The Conversation.

Children and young people are generally positive about artificial intelligence (AI) and think it should be used in modern healthcare, finds the first-of-its-kind survey led by UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). The national study asked children and young people aged six to 23 years old, across all four UK nations for their views on how they would like AI to be used to enhance their healthcare.

A new set of maps showing how the climate has shifted in each UK constituency will help people ask pertinent questions on the doorstep in future elections, write Professor Chris Brierley (UCL Geography) and Hannah Woodward of Birkbeck, University of London in The Conversation.

UCL geophysicists installed nine seismometers around Wembley Park ahead of Taylor Swift's first Eras concerts in London and found that the opening night performance of 'Love Story' produced the strongest ground tremors.

The key to resilience is diversity, both of species in ecosystems and conservation measures in protected area management systems, write Emeritus Professor Peter Jones (UCL Geography) and Professor Rick Stafford of Bournemouth University in The Conversation.

Professor Mark Maslin's (UCL Geography) believes voluntary carbon markets are a small but essential part of worldwide efforts to reduce global emissions.

Scientific principles and transparency must lead the conversation about what counts as carbon credits in order to build confidence in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), finds a new report led by UCL researchers.

A new science policy briefing on vaccine technology transfers to lowand middle-income countries (LMICs), written by UCL researchers, informed discussions at the United Nations.

A new artificial intelligence (AI) system that could significantly reduce the time and cost required to recruit clinical trial patients for an advanced form of age-related vision loss has been developed by a team led by UCL and Moorfields Eye Hospital researchers. The system focuses on Geographic Atrophy (GA), an advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) leading to irreversible vision loss and legal blindness.

New research to uncover the brain areas that bias mood and the brain's response in bipolar disorder could one day lead to better treatments, writes Dr Hestia Moningka (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) in The Conversation.