news 2018

Learning about someone's political beliefs interferes with a person's ability to assess expertise, as people judge like-minded peers as being more expert in fields completely unrelated to politics, finds a new UCL-led study. In the paper, published in Cognition , the researchers found that people turned to peers with similar political views for help on a shape categorisation task that had nothing to do with politics, instead of seeking help from someone who was doing better at the shape categorisation task but didn't share their political leanings.

Governments and police forces around the world need to give greater consideration to the potential harm caused by mass and social media following terror events, a report concludes. Academics at Cardiff University's Crime and Security Research Institute (CSRI) lead an international team of analysts from the University of New South Wales, Michigan State University and the Canadian Society of Evidence Based Policing to learn the lessons from researching recent terror attacks in the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Lack of awareness of the full services that dentists offer and an expectation of long waiting times for appointments are among the reasons that 380,000 people in the UK visited their doctor with a dental problem last year, needlessly adding to GP appointment waiting times. A new study, by Cardiff University and Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, which interviewed adults across the UK, found several common reasons why people make GP appointments instead of seeing a dentist.

A 'brain training' app developed at the University of Cambridge could help people who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) manage their symptoms, which may typically include excessive handwashing and contamination fears.

An international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and the University of Oxford has revealed that New Caledonian crows are able to create tools by combining two or more otherwise non-functional elements, an ability so far observed only in humans and great apes. The new study, published today in Scientific Reports , shows that these birds can create long-reaching tools out of short combinable parts - an astonishing mental feat.

Treating the prostate with radiotherapy alongside standard treatment led to an 11 per cent increase in survival for some men with advanced prostate cancer, a study at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL has found. The findings ,  published in The Lancet , come from from one of the largest ever clinical trials for the disease.

Scientists have created an artificial intelligence system that could help treat patients with sepsis. The technology, developed by researchers from Imperial College London , was found to predict the best treatment strategy for patients. Our new AI system was able to analyse a patient's data - such as blood pressure and heart rate - and decide the best treatment strategy.

Urban farmers growing vegetables to feed millions of people in Africa's ever-growing cities could unwittingly be helping to spread disease by irrigating crops with wastewater, a new study reveals. Experts discovered that wastewater collected from canals used for urban agriculture in Burkina Faso was rich in virulent human pathogens which cause gastroenteritis and diarrhoea - a major cause of death in low and middle-income countries.

A new home-based rehabilitation programme could help thousands of heart failure patients to achieve a better quality of life, research carried out in collaboration with the University of Birmingham has found. A new study has found that the Rehabilitation Enablement in CHronic Heart Failure (REACH-HF) programme , led by the University of Exeter and the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS trust, significantly improved quality of life and is deliverable within NHS cost guidelines.

The relationship between climate change, environmental degradation and modern slavery needs to be better understood in order for the interconnected crisis to be tackled, according to a new report. The report , which is released today by experts from the University of Nottingham's Rights Lab, Royal Holloway University of London and the UK's Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner (IASC), critically reviews what is currently known about the relationship and assesses the academic research that has already been done.

A popular University of Nottingham veterinary survey into the problem of itchy skin allergies in dogs is being extended to include all breeds of dog after some interesting initial results. The Itchy Dog Project is an online study that was launched at Crufts last year to help researchers examine the possible genetic and environmental causes of canine atopic dermatitis.

Scientists discover the first high-temperature single-molecule magnet. This could be relevant for molecule-based magnetic information storage materials. The research group reports a new single-molecule magnet (SMM) - a type of material that retains magnetic information up to a characteristic blocking temperature.

Providing nurse-led care for people suffering with the painful, long-term condition gout could lead to an increase in the number of patients sticking to a beneficial treatment plan, a clinical trial has revealed. The research, led by academics at The University of Nottingham and published in The Lancet , has shown that keeping patients fully informed and involving them in decisions about their care can be more successful in managing gout.

Research from King's College London has shown for the first time that genetics plays a significant role in whether young adults choose to go to university, which university they choose to attend and how well they do. Previous studies from King's College London have shown that genetics plays a major role in academic achievement at school, with 58% of individual differences between students in GCSE scores due to genetic factors.

The first farmers who arrived into Europe had company when they travelled out of the Near East during the Neolithic expansion. Along with many other plants and animals, they also brought their dogs. The international collaboration conducted by researchers at École Normale Supérieure of Lyon, the University of Oxford, the National History Museum and the University of Rennes, has revealed that dogs have quite literally been man's best friend, from as far back as 9,000 years ago.

New research conducted for the current independent inquiry suggests that - despite recent policy improvements - cultures of child abuse are liable to emerge while youth custody exists, and keeping children in secure institutions should be limited as far as possible.

Scientists have gained new insights into how the 'master regulator' of reproduction affects men's brains. In a new study, scientists from Imperial College London investigated how a recently discovered hormone called kisspeptin alters brain activity in healthy volunteers. These insights suggest the hormone could one day be used to treat conditions such as low sex drive or depression Professor Waljit Dhillo Study author The hormone, known as the master regulator of reproduction, not only has a crucial role in sperm and egg production, but may also boost reproductive behaviours.

The world's first functional oesophagus engineered from stem cells has been grown and successfully transplanted into mice, as part of a pioneering new study led by UCL. It is hoped this research, carried out by UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH), in collaboration with Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the Francis Crick Institute, could pave the way for clinical trials of lab-grown food pipes for children with congenital and acquired gut conditions.

The most common form of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) originated in Europe and spread to Asia, Africa and the Americas with European explorers and colonialists, reveals a new study led by UCL and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. TB takes more lives than any other infectious disease and while its global burden has slowly declined over the past decade, the rise of antibiotic resistance (ABR) presents a major obstacle to its control.

Young people who read fiction have significantly stronger reading skills than their peers who do not, according to new findings from UCL. Researchers from the UCL Institute of Education (IOE), analysed data from more than 250,000 teenagers aged 15, across 35 industrialised countries* who had taken part in the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA).