News 2019

Researchers at the University of Birmingham have identified a weakness in Intel's processors: by undervolting the CPU, Intel's secure enclave technology becomes vulnerable to attack. Modern processors are being pushed to perform faster than ever before - and with this comes increases in heat and power consumption.

Understanding what influences the amount of methane in the atmosphere has been identified by the American Geophysical Union to be one of the foremost challenges in the earth sciences in the coming decades because of methane's hugely important role in meeting climate warming targets. Methane is the second most important human-made greenhouse gas and is rising in the atmosphere more rapidly than predicted for reasons that are not well-understood.

Greenland is losing ice seven times faster than in the 1990s, shows a new study by an international research team including Durham University. The rate of ice loss is in line with the more pessimistic climate warming scenario by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which would see 40 million more people exposed to coastal flooding by 2100.

Imperial College London bioengineers have found a way to create stretchy and squeezy soft sensing devices by bonding rubber to electrical components. Stretchy and squeezy soft sensors that can fit around body parts or squeezed in hands could be used for applications including sports and rehabilitation after injury or stroke.

Researchers at Oxford University, together with and international colleagues, have discovered jet stream patterns that could affect up to a quarter of global food production. In a new study published today , scientists show how specific wave patterns in the jet stream strongly increase the chance of co-occurring heatwaves in major food producing regions of Northern America, Western Europe and Asia.

A new study by scientists from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the University of Bristol and flood analytics company Fathom, seeks to answer an important question related to flooding in the United States - pay now to protect undeveloped areas that are likely to flood in the future or allow developments to go ahead and pay for damage when it occurs.

Baby boy's and girl's immune systems respond differently to prebiotics and probiotics, according to new research. The paper published in Frontiers in Immunology today [9 December] suggests that differences in male and female immunity begin much earlier than previously thought. The team from the Universities of Bristol and Reading found that 28-day old piglets produced very different levels of immune cells, antibodies and other immune-associated molecules depending on their sex, contradicting previous evidence suggesting that the difference in immunity begins during puberty.

Researchers at Imperial have shown how the chaotic electrical signals underlying irregular heart rhythms lead to the failure of standard treatments. By modelling how electrical signals on the inside and the outside of the heart move across the muscle, researchers at Imperial College London have suggested why corrective surgery is not currently always beneficial.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe is going closer to the sun than any spacecraft has been before - Dr Daniel Verscharen (UCL Space & Climate Physics) writes about the findings so far. If you ask a child to paint a picture of the sun, you will most likely get a bright yellow circle on a piece of paper. This is actually quite accurate, given that the sun is a ball of hot gas and that its surface (called the photosphere) mostly shines in bright yellow light.

Personalised blood vessel testing kit could unravel causes and treatments for heart attack, stroke and vascular dementia, find scientists. Researchers can now grow a model of a patient's blood vessel wall in a dish from a small sample of their blood. The technology could be used to create personalised testing kits for new drugs and advance research into diseases of the blood vessels including stroke, heart attack and vascular dementia.

With 2019 on track to be one of the warmest years on record, a major new study reveals the impact of warming temperatures on Arctic vegetation, animal species, and human communities who rely on the stability of the Arctic food chain to survive. The study, published today in Science Advances by an international team of researchers, reports that the Arctic has warmed by 0.

Nearly 900,000 deaths in England could have been avoided in a more equal society, according to a UCL study of 2.5 million premature deaths over the last 16 years. The study, published today in The Lancet Public Health , found that one in three deaths before the age of 75 are attributable to socio-economic and regional health inequalities.

A simple health questionnaire could be a highly effective tool to pre-screen people for early signs of oesophageal cancer, enabling much earlier diagnosis and treatment, finds a UCL-led study. The research, published in Lancet Digital Health , used artificial intelligence to analyse a large oesophageal cancer dataset, known as BEST2 (1,299 patients), to establish which health factors were common in those individuals who had Barrett's oesophagus.

Durham researchers named among world's best At Durham we've long had a global reputation for the high standard and impact of our research. Now we're celebrating because five of our researchers have been named among the world's best for the quality and influence of their work. The researchers are investigating the origins of the universe, nature-based answers to climate change, and the make-up of the Earth's crust.

Women who have symptoms of depression and anxiety during pregnancy do not report concerns with their infant sons' behaviour - but do with daughters, a Cardiff University study has found. As many as one in four women experience depression and/or anxiety in pregnancy and evidence suggests it can increase the risk of emotional and behavioural issues, particularly in boys.

A major survey of medical record keeping in the NHS has revealed critical deficiencies that could risk patients' safety. Researchers at the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) at Imperial College London, found NHS Trusts were using at least 21 different electronic medical record systems which are unable to effectively share information.

Female survivors of domestic abuse are at double the risk of developing long-term illnesses that cause widespread bodily pain and extreme tiredness, shows a study by the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick. Published today in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence , the research shows that women who have experienced domestic abuse are almost twice as likely to develop fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) than those who have not.

Tropical species are six times more sensitive to forests being broken up for logging or farming than temperate species, says new research. A team led by Oregon State University and including Imperial College London scientists found that sensitivity to forest fragmentation - the breakup of forests by human activities like logging or farming - increased six-fold at low versus high latitudes, putting tropical species at greater risk of extinction.

Greenhouse gas emissions released directly from the movement of volcanic rocks are capable of creating massive global warming effects - a discovery which could transform the way scientists predict climate change, a new study reveals. Scientists' calculations based on how carbon-based greenhouse gas levels link to movements of magma just below earth's surface suggest that such geological change has caused the largest temporary global warming of the past 65 million years.

The introduction of a performance-related financial incentive scheme for GPs led to a dramatic almost five-fold rise in the number of patients whose heart rhythm condition was said to have been 'cured', say University of Birmingham researchers. Academics at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Applied Health Research, supported by NIHR ARC West Midlands, conducted a study into patients with the most common heart rhythm condition, called atrial fibrillation.