news 2012

An international team involving Durham University experts has produced the most accurate assessment of ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland to date, ending 20 years of uncertainty. In a landmark study the researchers show that melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has contributed 11.1 millimetres to global sea levels since 1992.

The reorganisation of the NHS in England, which will see new Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) – led by GPs – take responsibility for spending some £60 billion of public money, has generated much debate and discussion over the last two years. These groups were established during 2012 and have been preparing their organisations and plans ready to take on their new functions from next April.

Recent studies questioning the role of specialist heart attack centres produced misleading results because doctors tend to send the sickest patients to have the best care, according to new research. Many heart attack patients in the UK are sent to a specialist centre for primary angioplasty - a surgical procedure to reopen the blocked artery.

The material remains of the First World War on the British Home Front will be investigated by researchers at the University of Bristol and the University of York, thanks to £39,500 funding from English Heritage. The material remains of the First World War on the British Home Front will be investigated by researchers at the University of Bristol and the University of York, thanks to £39,500 funding from English Heritage.

A major study of the experiences of older people moving between health and care services published today highlights significant problems in the quality of the service they received. The researchers from the University of Birmingham's Health Services Management Centre found that too often older people were excluded from decisions and carers in particular felt undervalued by statutory providers.

UCL has today published a paper - MMR and the development of a research governance framework in UCL - that sets out how the university's research governance framework has been updated to take account of institutional issues highlighted by the case of Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield was struck off the medical register by the GMC in 2010 following an investigation into allegations of serious professional misconduct relating to his research into a possible link between autism and MMR.

Half of all people of South Asian, African and African Caribbean descent will develop diabetes by age 80, according to a new study published today. The study is the first to reveal the full extent of ethnic differences in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and also provides some answers about the causes of the increased risk.

This obscure little plant has hit on a fantastic way of making an irresistible shiny, sparkly, multi-coloured, iridescent signal to every bird in the vicinity." —Beverley Glover The 'brightest' thing in nature, the Pollia condensata fruit, does not get its blue colour from pigment but instead uses structural colour - a method of reflecting light of particular wavelengths- new research reveals.

An active lifestyle, which could involve brisk walking, gardening and doing housework, helps reduce the chance of getting breast cancer, research suggests. The study involving Oxford University researchers is thought to be the largest ever to look at physical activity and breast cancer, and included over 8,000 breast cancer cases in women.

A new study of nine coastal cities around the world suggests that Shanghai is most vulnerable to serious flooding. European cities top the leader board for their resilience. These finding are based on a new method to calculate the flood vulnerability of cities, developed by a team of researchers from the Netherlands and the University of Leeds.

When mimicry becomes less effective, evolving to look completely different can be a successful trick. Our research shows that individuals assess disguises not only from personal experience, but also by observing others. However, because their learning is so specific, this social learning then selects for alternative cuckoo disguises and the arms race continues." —Dr Rose Thorogood, co-author on the paper from the Departement of Zoology To minimise the chance of being recognised and thus attacked by the birds they are trying to parasitize, female cuckoos have evolved different guises.

Two treatments found previously to be the most effective for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) have now been found to be the most cost-effective treatments evaluated in a large clinical trial. The latest results from the PACE trial show that both cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET), as supplements to specialist medical care, offer good value for money for healthcare providers when the cost of treatment is weighed up against improvement in quality of life.

New research by the University of Oxford has found that the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) programme has increased real agricultural wages rates by 5.3% across India since its introduction in 2006. The study, led by Oxford, also involved researchers from the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India.

Community policing methods - based on dialogue, support and trust - are significantly helping counter-terrorism efforts in post 7/7 Britain, new research at the University of Birmingham has revealed. Researchers looked at the effective use of partnership work with Muslim groups, including those deemed as 'radicals', in so called 'soft' policing methods, and found that the increased trust and access to community-based expertise is helping to prevent extremist propaganda and acts of violence.

The University of Glasgow has been named as an Arthritis Research UK (ARUK) Experimental Arthritis Treatment Centre - the first in Scotland. The Centre will recruit local patients to test new and existing drugs and to find new approaches that can predict which treatment works best in individuals. With joint start-up funding of £225,000 over three years from medical research charity Arthritis Research UK and the Scottish Government's Chief Scientist Office, the centre aims to take forward the recent advances in the treatments available for people with arthritis.

Researchers at the University of Leeds have found that while UK local authorities are willing to think strategically about energy sustainability, their limited resources make it difficult to act. A study published in the journal Energy Policy , shows that while local authorities may have a vision to make cities sustainable in terms of energy use, it is difficult to implement a strategy to make this happen during this challenging time for local government.

A journal has published an edition of articles which have been edited and peer reviewed by people with learning disabilities, in a first for academia anywhere in the world. A University of Manchester team of academics and people with learning disabilities worked together on the British Journal of Learning Disabilities edition, which is published this week.

A new study has found the reorganisation of NHS services for children in the UK with cleft lip and palate has improved standards of care. It has also led to a co-ordinated approach to national cleft research that has the potential to improve health and treatment worldwide. The study by researchers at the University of Bristol, and published in the British Dental Journal , found the audit has informed the process of centralisation and a research strategy and infrastructure have been developed and embedded in the emerging clinical networks.

How can we make nuclear waste safe for millennia? Fundamental research led by the University of Cambridge will help find the answers. Our aim is to predict the chemical alteration of the fuel for ages between 1,000 and 100,000 years, which spans the lifetime of the disposal canisters." —Dr Ian Farnan The timescale for keeping hazardous nuclear waste isolated from living organisms is unimaginably long, with times specified by nuclear regulators in Europe and the USA ranging from 10,000 to 1,000,000 years.

A major study of the closure of care home beds across Birmingham has shown that for the majority of older people affected the process did not have a negative impact on their lives.