news 2017

Residents and workers in a major Pakistan city are exposed to harmful levels of pesticides, new research reveals. Scientists from Pakistan's F Quaid-i-Azam University and Lancaster University have evaluated the organophosphate pesticide concentration in dust from farms and also from pesticide manufacturing plants in the megacity of Lahore.

Twenty years on from the first major report on Islamophobia, a new report involving University of Birmingham research recommends that all parts of society call out prejudice and discrimination experienced by and suffered by Muslims. The report, produced by the Runnymede Trust with contributions from the University of Birmingham and a number of other UK universities, finds that Muslims face huge disadvantages in the jobs market, despite more Muslims going to university than ever - including more Muslim women graduates than men.

Adolescent cannabis use is an independent risk factor for future hypomania - often experienced as part of bipolar disorder - finds new research led by University of Warwick. First research to robustly test the association between adolescent cannabis use and hypomania (periods of elated mood, over-active and excited behaviour, reduced need for sleep) in early adulthood.

New research led by the University of Bristol has resolved evolutionary biology's most-heated debate, revealing it is the morphologically simple sponges, rather than the anatomically complex comb jellies, which represent the oldest lineage of living animals. Recent genomic analyses have "flip-flopped" between whether sponges or comb jellies are our deepest ancestors, leading experts to suggest available data might not have the power to resolve this specific problem.

In stressed newborn babies, behaviour alone is not a reliable way of assessing pain, according to new UCL and UCLH research. The study, published today in Current Biology and funded by the Medical Research Council UK, found that hospitalised newborns, who are already stressed by their environment have a much larger pain response in their brain following a routine clinical skin lance than non-stressed babies.

An international collaboration has for the first time revealed the key drivers of seabird migration. The new study suggests that puffin colonies that travel great distances during the winter often find it more difficult to breed than others, and that escaping your habitat with far-flung migration therefore carries a cost.

By forcing light to go through a smaller gap than ever before, researchers have paved the way for computers based on light instead of electronics. Light is desirable for use in computing because it can carry a higher density of information and is much faster and more efficient than conventional electronics.

The lifespans of flies and worms are prolonged by limiting the activity of an enzyme common to all animals, finds a UCL-led study. The enzyme - RNA polymerase III (Pol III) - is present in most cells across all animal species, including humans. While it is known to be essential for making proteins and for cell growth, its involvement in ageing was unexplored until now.

Imperial experts discuss a new way of combating EED, a debilitating disease in children that is prevalent in the developing world. Environmental Enteric Dysfunction , or EED, is widespread in developing countries and has severe negative impacts on children's physical and cognitive development. The condition is poorly understood, and the techniques currently used to study and identify the disease are invasive and difficult to administer.

The first study to compare ancient and living female bones shows that women from early agricultural eras had stronger arms than the rowers of Cambridge University's famously competitive boat club. Researchers say the findings suggest a "hidden history" of gruelling manual labour performed by women that stretched across millennia.

Imperial has been awarded £2.2 million grant to trial a new treatment for a potentially deadly complication that affects some twin pregnancies. Dr Christoph Lees, Head of Fetal Medicine at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Clinical Reader in Obstetrics at Imperial College London, was awarded the funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to carry out the first in human trials to treat twin-twin transfusion (TTTS).

Researchers at the University of Birmingham have identified new mechanisms used by bacteria to resist infection-fighting antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance happens when bacteria evolve mechanisms to withstand the drugs which are used to treat infections. The team of experts at the University's Institute of Microbiology and Infection focussed their research on E. coli, which can cause urinary and blood stream infections.

o Evidence for impact on other complications of pregnancy less clear o Study conducted by University of Warwick Mums-to-be living in war zones/areas of armed conflict are at heightened risk of giving birth to low birthweight babies. However the evidence for any impact on the rate of other complications of pregnancy is less clear.

Marriage may lower the risk of developing dementia, concludes a UCL-led synthesis of the available evidence published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry . Lifelong singletons and widowers are at heightened risk of developing the disease, the findings indicate, although single status may no longer be quite the health hazard it once seemed to be, the researchers acknowledge.

Making eye contact with an infant makes adults' and babies' brainwaves 'get in sync' with each other - which is likely to support communication and learning - according to researchers at the University of Cambridge.

A University of Bristol-led study has revealed new details about dinosaur feathers and enabled scientists to further refine what is potentially the most accurate depiction of any dinosaur species to date. Birds are the direct descendants of a group of feathered, carnivorous dinosaurs that, along with true birds, are referred to as paravians - examples of which include the infamous Velociraptor.

One of the UK's leading microbiologists is concerned that confusing language and a lack of specific objectives are hampering the global fight against antibiotic-resistant infections. Professor Laura Piddock , of the Institute of Microbiology and Infection, at the University of Birmingham, and her collaborators have written a report for the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Antibiotics.

A five-year study aiming to reduce the risk of stomach bleeding in aspirin users, led by University of Nottingham researchers, is believed to be the UK's largest interventional academic drug trial. The HEAT study, which was led by Professor Chris Hawkey in the University's School of Medicine and Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, and funded and supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), recruited more than 30,000 patients.

Scientists have found that much of the Indus thrived around an extinct river, challenging ideas about how urbanisation in ancient cultures evolved. The Indus or Harappan Civilisation was a Bronze Age society that developed mainly in the northwestern regions of South Asia from 5300 to 3300 years ago, at about the same time as urban civilisations developed in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

All babies across Europe should be routinely screened for critical congenital heart defects (CCHD) within 24 hours of their birth, say a group of experts led by a University of Birmingham Professor and Honorary Consultant Neonatologist at Birmingham Women's Hospital. The European Pulse Oximetry Screening Workgroup (EPOSW), a group of neonatologists and paediatric cardiologist, including Presidents of leading European Neonatal Scientific Societies, has published a consensus statement recommending screening with pulse oximetry for all babies across Europe.