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First of its kind AI-model can help policymakers efficiently identify and prioritize houses for retrofitting and other decarbonizing measures. This is the first time that AI has been trained to identify hard-to-decarbonize buildings Ronita Bardhan 'Hard-to-decarbonize' (HtD) houses are responsible for over a quarter of all direct housing emissions - a major obstacle to achieving net zero - but are rarely identified or targeted for improvement.

The MyCampus system will be trialled in six buildings from 6 November, before being rolled out across UCL. Staff and students can report maintenance issues and track progress. What do I need to know?  MyCampus is an integrated workplace management system (IWMS), of the type used by many large organisations, which provides a single source of truth for all Estates data to inform decision-making on the operational requirements of UCL's estate.

Embracing the Rural Exception Site planning policy can significantly increase the delivery of affordable homes in the English countryside, while maintaining the community's local character, finds a new report by researchers from UCL and the English Rural Housing Association. The report, titled Land, Landowners, and the Delivery of Affordable Homes in Rural Areas , outlines the housing affordability issues facing rural towns and parishes, and highlights how greater use of the already-established Rural Exception Site policy could help deliver much needed affordable homes.

Researchers analysed 68 city centres across England, Scotland and Wales ranking them on tree cover, vegetation and parks in the heart of the city centres The top five greenest city centres are all in the South of England (Exeter, Islington, Bristol, Bournemouth Cambridge) This is the first study of its kind to focus specifically on the heart of city centres, as opposed to prior studies which have measured greenness of whole cities, including bro

New insight into termites' architectural strategies could help us design more energy efficient self-sustaining buildings for humans. Many species of termite, whose societies are built on hierarchies of kings, queens, workers, and soldiers, live in towering nests that are ventilated by a complex system of tunnels.

Office and residential buildings use more energy per square metre, the taller they are, according to new research from UCL. Researchers at UCL's Energy Institute have found that electricity use, per square metre of floor area, is nearly two and a half times greater in high-rise office buildings of 20 or more storeys than in low-rise buildings of 6 storeys or less.

Using a satnav to get to your destination 'switches off' parts of the brain that would otherwise be used to simulate different routes, reveals new UCL research. The study, published and funded by Wellcome, involved 24 volunteers navigating a simulation of Soho in central London while undergoing brain scans.

New opportunities to fight climate change in these properties are coming from an unlikely source: the commercial property lease. A new study finds that in 2009, only 15% of all leases signed in Sydney's central business district contained green clauses; by 2013, this had risen to over 60%. Traditionally, leases ignore environmental considerations, partly due to conflicting landlord and tenant goals.

The University of Nottingham has developed a novel and easy-to-use test for measuring the airtightness of buildings in order to help eliminate draughts, improve energy efficiency and reduce heating bills. The testing of airtightness is needed to help establish and minimise the infiltration rate of cold air into buildings and the loss of heated air out through gaps, holes and cracks in the building fabric.

o University research could shape Government housing policy o Study reveals inflexible parking on new estates leads to tension between neighbours o Research recommends wider streets with room for on-street parking Government policy on how future new housing estates should be designed could be shaped by leading research from the University of Sheffield.

Many homes with poor energy efficiency are actually consuming far less energy than predicted, new research has found. The study has implications for national energy-saving policies and the economic viability of thermal retrofit programmes. This challenges the prevailing view that large cuts in energy consumption can be achieved by focusing purely on technical solutions, such as retrofitting homes.

Excavation of 19,000-year-old hunter-gatherer remains, including a vast camp site, is fuelling a reinterpretation of the greatest fundamental shift in human civilisation - the origins of agriculture.

Some of the earliest evidence of prehistoric architecture has been discovered in the Jordanian desert, providing archaeologists with a new perspective on how humans lived 20,000 years ago. Inside the huts, we found intentionally burnt piles of gazelle horn cores, clumps of red ochre pigment and a cache of hundreds of pierced marine shells." —Dr Lisa Maher Archaeologists working in eastern Jordan have announced the discovery of 20,000-year-old hut structures, the earliest yet found in the Kingdom.

Novel use of CT scanning technology has allowed researchers at the University of Bristol to create a four-dimensional picture of how ants build their nests. Ant nests are some of the most remarkable structures in nature. Their relative size is rivalled only by our own skyscrapers but there is no architect or blueprint.

The team of neuroscientists and computer experts from the UK, US and Germany compared the way these systems are organised and found that the same networking principles underlie all three. Using data for the large part already in the public domain, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging data from human brains, a map of the nematode's nervous system and a standard computer chip, they examined how the elements in each system are networked together.

An international group of European and US scientists led by the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology at The University of Nottingham have uncovered a fascinating new insight into the unseen side of plant biology - the root. Although less visible than shoots, leaves and flowers, plant roots are critical to our lives.