news 2013

Sussex physicists have taken a small step towards fulfilling Einstein's dream of proving there is only one fundamental force in nature. Following last year's discovery of the Higgs boson particle - the so-called "God particle" that answers how the particles have masses - Xavier Calmet and PhD student Michael Atkins looked at how the Higgs field interacts with gravity.

Pioneering chemists from The University of Nottingham are taking part in the biggest-ever European research programme to speed up the discovery of new drugs.

Obesity can lead to a lack of vitamin D circulating in the body, according to a study led by the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH). Efforts to tackle obesity should thus also help to reduce levels of vitamin D deficiency in the population, says the lead investigator of the study, Elina Hypponen. While previous studies have linked vitamin D deficiency with obesity, the ICH-led paper, published in the journal PLOS Medicine , sought to establish the direction of causality, i.e. whether a lack of vitamin D triggers a weight gain, or whether obesity leads to the deficiency.

—Dr Markus Z?ttl of the University of Cambridge Cichlid fish are more likely to accept immigrants into their group when they are under threat from predators and need reinforcements, new research shows. The researcher suggests that there are parallels between cooperatively breeding fish's and humans' regulation of immigrants.

A new study by researchers at Imperial College London has identified how Neisseria meningitidis, a type of bacteria that causes life-threatening meningitis and septicaemia, is able to detect and ingest new DNA and generate different strains. One way in which bacteria overcome our immune defences is by generating new variants that either go undetected, or are more resistant to antibiotics and can cause serious disease outbreaks.

Since the 1990s, scholars have believed that around 35,000 years ago the last of the Neanderthals sought refuge in southern Iberia, in an area known as Spain today. However, new dating evidence on fossilised bones from sites in the region suggests that the fossils could be 15,000 years older than previously thought.

The UK dog population is estimated to be around ten million, with dogs producing approximately 1,000 tonnes of excrement each day. New research has shown that dogs act as a major source of the parasite egg, Toxocara, which can potentially contaminate the public environment and infect humans.

How, when and where a pathogen is transmitted between two individuals in a population is crucial in understanding and predicting how a disease will spread. New research has laid the foundation for a new generation of zoonotic disease spreading models, which could allow for more targeted prevention strategies.

A systematic review examining the current methods used to map infectious diseases worldwide has found them to be severely lacking. The study, led by researchers at the University of Oxford, makes several recommendations to improve future mapping efforts. The review, published as open-access in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B , identified 355 infectious diseases of clinical significance to humans.

A discovery by researchers at Imperial College London suggests a possible new target for treating a serious complication of pregnancy called obstetric cholestasis. Obstetric cholestasis is a liver condition, which causes a build-up of toxic bile acids in the bloodstream. It occurs in one in 140 pregnancies in the UK and can result in stillbirth.

Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered a new way in which a very common childhood disease could be treated. In the first year of life, 65 per cent of babies get infected by Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). This causes bronchiolitis, and is thought to kill nearly 200,000 children every year worldwide.

These results are exciting, as they show us that individuals are not just on the look-out for their own safety, but that the protection of other group members is another motivation for these behaviours." —Peter Santema, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology In order to spot potential predators, adult meerkats often climb to a higher vantage point or stand on their hind legs.

Injection-free vaccination technique could address global vaccine challenge for diseases such as HIV and malaria Scientists at King's College London have demonstrated the ability to deliver a dried live vaccine to the skin without a traditional needle, and shown for the first time that this technique is powerful enough to enable specialised immune cells in the skin to kick-start the immunising properties of the vaccine.

Our results raise the possibility that these birds may be capable of ascribing desire to their mates." —Ljerka Ostojic New research shows that male Eurasian Jays in committed relationships are able to share food with their female partner according to her current desire. The behaviour suggests the potential for 'state-attribution' in these birds - the ability to recognise and understand the internal life and psychological states of others.

A new vaccine against tuberculosis developed at Oxford University - the TB vaccine most advanced in clinical trials - has been found not to offer extra protection against the disease in babies previously vaccinated with BCG. The clinical trial was the first to evaluate the ability of a new TB vaccine to prevent the disease since BCG, the 90 year-old vaccine that is familiar to many and is used extensively throughout the world.

Patients with type 2 diabetes treated with insulin could be exposed to a greater risk of health complications including heart attack, stroke, cancer and eye complications a new University study has found. Examining the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) - data that characterises about 10% of the UK population - a team of researchers from the University's School of Medicine looked at the risk of death for patients taking insulin compared with other treatments designed to lower blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes.

In findings released in the Clinical Cancer Research journal, University of Manchester scientist Rob Clarke, funded by leading medical research charity Breast Cancer Campaign, has proved for the first time that breast cancer stem cells taken directly from patients can be successfully targeted to treat the disease.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow together with the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre and the Natural History Museum (London) have discovered the first evidence of water dissolving the surface of Mars. In a paper published in the Meteoritical Society's journal MAPS , the research team outline the results of tests on a 1.7-gram fragment of a Martian meteorite known as Nakhla, which was provided by the Natural History Museum.

New data visualisation work from the European Centre for the Environment and Human Health, Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry and the University of Exeter is helping academics to understand the fate of pharmaceuticals in the environment. Featured this week, the information graphic depicts the complex system of pharmaceutical transport around the areas in which we live.

A gene linked to obesity and over eating may also increase the risk of malignant melanoma - the most deadly skin cancer, according to scientists at the University of Leeds. The research, funded by Cancer Research UK, shows that people with particular variations in a stretch of DNA within the FTO gene, called intron 8, could be at greater risk of developing melanoma.