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In an Imperial College London study, humans displayed sympathy towards and protected AI bots who were excluded from playtime. The researchers say the study, which used a virtual ball game, highlights humans' tendency to treat AI agents as social beings - an inclination that should be considered when designing AI bots.

Deploying effective COVID-19 vaccines in 100 days could have saved over eight million lives. More than eight million deaths might have been avoided  during the COVID-19 pandemic if safe and effective new vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 were developed and delivered within the first three months, new analysis finds.

Most dog owners didn't know that flea and tick treatments are dangerous to aquatic life, suggesting more awareness could ease the problem. A study on Hampstead Heath shows that ponds where dogs are allowed to swim contain levels of two pesticides harmful to invertebrate life. These pesticides, imidacloprid and fipronil, are used as parasite treatments for flea and tick infestations in cats and dogs, using 'spot-on' formulas and flea collars.

An Imperial-led study has highlighted specific changes associated with COVID-19 in particular brain function scores of healthy young people. New analysis from Imperial's human challenge study of COVID-19 has revealed subtle differences in the memory and cognition scores of healthy volunteers infected with SARS-CoV-2, which lasted up to a year after infection.

New insights into how children's immune cells respond during fever could lead to better treatments for a range of illnesses. These are the findings of a new study which reveal how individual immune cells respond to a range of severe childhood infections and inflammatory diseases. By analysing blood samples from more than 100 children with febrile illness - where the main symptoms include high fever, but which can be caused by a range of infections and conditions - they have been able to pinpoint subtle changes in how the immune system responds to four key conditions.

Here's a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial. From ultrafast probing pulses to a free AI algorithm that could find new medicines more efficiently, here is some quick-read news from across Imperial. W-boson mass measurement   The Standard Model of particle physics - which describes all the subatomic particles and forces we know about - has triumphed again.

Cyclists choosing a new helmet can see how much protection different helmets offer, thanks to new safety testing and ratings from Imperial College Lon Researchers at Imperial College London have developed a simple new cycle helmet safety rating system with simple-to-understand scores from 0-5, designed to help buyers select which helmet to buy and assist manufacturers in future helmet design. The system is based on extensive new safety testing experiments on medium-sized helmets at Imperial.

Small marine crustaceans are as valuable as key coastal habitats for storing carbon and should be similarly protected, according to new research. The study shows that a single species, Antarctic krill, store similar amounts of carbon to key 'blue carbon' habitats such as mangroves, saltmarshes and seagrasses.

Researchers have uncovered how hormones profoundly affect our immune systems, explaining why men and women are affected by diseases differently. Scientists from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Imperial College London have shown for the first time which aspects of our immune systems are regulated by sex hormones, and the impacts this has on disease risk and health outcomes in males and females.

Here's a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial. From brain fluid surgery to a lunar-Earth flyby from the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), here is some quick-read news from across Imperial. Spacecraft slingshot success The European Space Agency (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), with Imperial kit on board , has successfully completed a world-first lunar-Earth flyby.

The number of people with food allergy in the UK has more than doubled since 2008, with the largest increase seen in young children. In a new analysis, researchers from Imperial College London estimate that the number of people living with food allergies in England has increased significantly between 2008 and 2018.

Imperial research has found limits to how quickly we can scale up technology to store gigatonnes of carbon dioxide under the Earth's surface. Current international scenarios for limiting global warming to less than 1.5 degrees by the end of the century rely on technologies that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the Earth's atmosphere faster than humans release it.

A team from Imperial and BASF has won the Computers & Chemical Engineering Best Paper Award 2023 for AI techniques that could boost chemical R&D. The prestigious journal in process systems engineering rated the paper as the best of over 280 published that year. The process of trial and error in chemical R&D is costly, with some experiments taking weeks.

New results from the world's most sensitive dark matter detector narrow down the possibilities for what makes up our universe's invisible mass. Figuring out the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe, is one of the greatest puzzles in physics. New results from the world's most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), have put new limits on the potential properties of one of the leading dark matter candidates: weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.

New research using neural networks, a form of brain-inspired AI, proposes a solution to the tough challenge of modelling the states of molecules. The research shows how the technique can help solve fundamental equations in complex molecular systems. This could lead to practical uses in the future, helping researchers to prototype new materials and chemical syntheses using computer simulation before trying to make them in the lab.

Imperial has received a donation from high performance and adaptive computing company AMD to support research into machine learning. made the donation in recognition of the excellent research of Professor George Constantinides and Dr Aaron Zhao in Imperial's Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Here's a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial. From new treatment targets for balance problems, to space weather missions, here is some quick-read news from across Imperial. Space weather mission  researchers will be building kit for a new space mission to understand a component of the solar wind and how it interacts with the Earth to create potentially dangerous 'space weather'.

Modern commercial aircraft flying at high altitudes create longer-lived planet-warming contrails than older aircraft, a new study has found. The result means that although modern planes emit less carbon than older aircraft, they may be contributing more to climate change through contrails. Led by scientists at Imperial College London, the study highlights the immense challenges the aviation industry faces to reduce its impact on the climate.

Scientists have found that a worker's lifetime exposure to 'permissible' levels of silica dust results in a considerable risk of developing silicosis. New research led by Imperial College London has found that workplace exposure to silica dust is linked to an increased risk of the acute lung condition silicosis and recommends current occupational exposure limits should be halved.

Earth systems could be 'tipped' into unstable states if warming overshoots 1.5C target, but impacts could be minimised if warming is swiftly reversed. The Paris Agreement target to keep global warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels was set to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.