A new framework has been developed by Women's Aid in partnership with academic colleagues - including the University of Bristol - to promote best practice in research into domestic violence and abuse (DVA). The Research Integrity Framework aims to give policy makers and commissioners more clarity on the merits of different types of evidence and research, and the principles of integrity relating to DVA research.

New research suggests testing people's memory over four weeks could identify who is at higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease before it has developed. Importantly, the trial found testing people's ability to retain memories for longer time periods could predict this more accurately than classic memory tests, which test memory over half an hour.

Preschool children's eating, activity, and sleep routines were disrupted during the spring COVID-19 lockdown, which may be detrimental to child health and development a study suggests. Parents of children (aged threeto five-year-old) due to start school in September 2020 shared their children's experiences of the spring lockdown with academics from the Universities of Bristol, Birmingham and Glasgow.

A new study based on scientific sampling of a rusty carbon sink at a permafrost peatland at Sweden has revealed that iron minerals fail to trap organic carbon, a vast source of CO2 and methane not included in global warming forecasts. The study, conducted by researchers from the Universities of Tübingen and Bristol conducted their investigation site at Stordalen mire, Abisko, Sweden appears today [10 December].

Men have almost three times the odds of needing admission to intensive care and 40% higher odds of dying from COVID-19 than women, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the University of Cape Town. The study, published and the largest review of its kind, looked at publicly available data from 92 reports across 47 countries to investigate why COVID-19 may affect genders differently.

Injecting a gene therapy vector into one eye of someone suffering from  LHON , the most common cause of mitochondrial blindness, significantly improves vision in both eyes, scientists have found. Saving sight with gene therapy is now a reality Patrick Yu-Wai-Man In a landmark phase 3 clinical trial, the international team, coordinated by Dr Patrick Yu-Wai-Man from the University of Cambridge and Dr José-Alain Sahel from the University of Pittsburgh and Institut de la Vision, Paris, successfully treated 37 patients suffering from Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) .

A service that predicts passenger intent to travel can be used across the UK rail network to reduce overcrowding and help people maintain social distancing. Researchers from the University of Birmingham's Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) worked in collaboration with British technology start-up Zipabout to validate the data powering the service, which was designed by Zipabout.

By testing approximately 1,000 blood donation samples each month in in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo and Manaus, an international team of researchers have shown that, while both cities have experienced large epidemics with high mortality, as much as three-quarters of the population in Manaus was infected between March and October, and a third of the population in São Paulo.

Healthcare workers are seven times as likely to have severe COVID-19 infection as those with other types of 'non-essential' jobs, finds research led by the University of Glasgow which focused on the first UK-wide lockdown The study, which is published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, found those with jobs in the social care and transport sectors are twice as likely to have severe COVID-19, emphasising the need to ensure that essential (key) workers are adequately protected against the infection, say the researchers.

Researchers have found a way to protect highly fragile quantum systems from noise, which could aid in the design and development of new quantum devices, such as ultra-powerful quantum computers. Until we can find a way to make quantum systems more robust, their real-world applications will be limited Shovan Dutta The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, have shown that microscopic particles can remain intrinsically linked, or entangled, over long distances even if there are random disruptions between them.

Sending direct messages on social media informing people of the negative health and environmental impacts of consuming meat has proven successful at changing eating habits, a new study from Cardiff University has shown. The study showed that sending direct messages twice a day through Facebook Messenger led to a significant reduction in the amount of red and processed meat the participants consumed over a 14-day period.

The first lockdown led to a significant increase in symptoms of depression among children, highlighting the unintended consequences of school closures, according to a new study from the University of Cambridge. Our study is one of the first to follow the same children over time during lockdown and suggests that symptoms of depression among children got much worse during this period Giacomo Bignardi In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK Government implemented a national "lockdown" involving school closures and social distancing.

Our vaccine work is progressing quickly. To ensure you have the latest information or to find out more about the trial, please visit the  Oxford COVID-19 vaccine web hub  or visit the  COVID-19 trial website .

Particulate emissions from cooking stay in the atmosphere for longer than previously thought, making a prolonged contribution to poor air quality and human health, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Birmingham succeeded in demonstrating how cooking emissions - which account for up to 10 per cent of particulate pollution in the UK - are able to survive in the atmosphere over several days, rather than being broken up and dispersed.

A new review of research bringing together patient, carer and public views of cell and gene therapies has highlighted a need for appropriate education to better inform people including how clinical trials work and the risks and benefits of various treatments. Over the last decade, new cell, gene and tissue-engineered therapies have been developed to treat various cancers, inherited diseases and some chronic conditions.

Storytelling is the most effective way of teaching school children about evolution, say researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution. Last updated on Tuesday 8 December 2020 A randomised controlled trial found that children learn about evolution more effectively when engaged through stories read by the teacher, than through doing tasks to demonstrate the same concept.

Researchers have developed a free, open-source toolkit that allows laboratories in developing countries to produce their own tools for COVID-19 research and diagnosis, without relying on an increasingly fractured global supply chain. A resilient local supply chain for diagnostics is vital to future health security and pandemic preparedness Jenny Molloy High demand for millions of COVID-19 tests per day combined with a disrupted global supply chain has left many countries facing diagnostic shortages.

California's 2018 wildfires cost the US economy $148.5bn (£110bn) (0.7% of the country's annual GDP), of which $45.9bn was lost outside the state, according to researchers from universities including UCL. More than 8,500 separate fires burned during 2018 in California, making them the deadliest and most destructive of any year in the state's history.

Scientists have tracked the very early stages of human foetal gut development in incredible detail, and found specific cell functions that appear to be reactivated in the gut of children with Crohn's Disease. Our results indicate there might be a reprogramming of specific gut cell functions in Crohn's Disease Matthias Zilbauer The results are an important step towards better management and treatment of this devastating condition.

Expectations are rising that the 2021 Northern Ireland census may act as a trigger for a referendum on Irish unification, but 'new' census questions on religious background and national identity are likely to shape the debate about Northern Ireland's constitutional future, a new study reveals. While 'sectarian head-counting' has featured in Northern Irish politics since partition in 1921, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA) introduced a mechanism for a 'border poll' on Irish unification.