news

Obesity is associated with a higher risk of dementia up to 15 years later, finds a new UCL study suggesting that weight management could play a significant role in reducing risk. The findings, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology , suggest that people who are obese in late adulthood face a 31% increased risk of dementia than those whose body mass index (BMI) is within the 'normal' range.

Adults in the lowest socio-economic group have been almost nine times more likely to struggle to pay the bills compared to those from higher socio-economic groups, finds a new UCL study examining adversity relating to Covid-19. The study, published with Epidemiology and Community Health , explored the changing patterns of adversity in the UK relating to the Covid-19 pandemic by socioeconomic position during the early weeks of lockdown from 25 March to 14 April 2020.

A new technique that synchronises the clocks of computers in under a billionth of a second can eliminate one of the hurdles for the deployment of all-optical networks, potentially leading to more efficient data centres, according to a new study led by UCL and Microsoft. Data centres, comprising tens or hundreds of thousands connected servers, are the underlying technology empowering everything we do online, from storing films and photos to serving up webpages and online services.

Fear, stigma, reduced autonomy and security requirements have resulted in prisoners receiving lower standards of secondary healthcare than the wider community, finds a new UCL-led study. Published today in The Lancet EClinicalMedicine, the study explores accounts of around 40 prisoners, and is the first to consider how people in prisons experience hospital healthcare.

As evidence mounts for the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 infecting various animals, scientists at UCL say a global effort is needed to reduce the risk of the virus later returning to people. In a comment piece for The Lancet Microbe , researchers write that if the virus becomes common in an animal population that lives near people, such as pets or livestock, there would be a risk that another outbreak could occur even if the virus is eradicated in people in the area.

Elite athletes who adopted simple oral health measures, such as using high fluoride toothpaste and cleaning between their teeth, reported significantly reduced negative effects on performance related to poor oral health, finds a new study led by UCL.

People in the UK are continuing to spend several days a week at home, despite lockdown measures being eased, finds UCL's Covid-19 social study. The research shows that adults on average stayed at home or in their gardens four days a week at the start of lockdown, when one daily exercise and essential trip were allowed.

Evidence of an elite adult male conceived through a socially sanctioned incestuous relationship during the Neolithic period has been discovered in Ireland's largest passage tomb, finds a new study involving UCL and Trinity College Dublin. The remains were identified in New Grange, a 5,000 year-old passage tomb that sits within the UNESCO monumental site of Brú na Bóinne.

A 'COVID-19 free cold site', set up to carry out non-emergency cancer surgeries, successfully operated on 500 consecutive patients, resulting in no coronavirus-related deaths at 30 days, reports a large cohort study led by UCL and University College London Hospitals. With more than two million* non-emergency surgeries being cancelled globally every week due to COVID-19, researchers say the findings will have a major impact on how healthcare systems are set up and should reassure 'at risk' cancer patients fearful of attending appointments.

UCL's Cancer Institute is repurposing a sophisticated antibody engineering approach, funded by the UCL Technology Fund (UCLTF), to research and develop a new treatment against Covid-19. A new project, led by Dr Martin Pule, Senior Lecturer in Haematology and Professor Kerry Chester, Department of Oncology, will investigate pivoting existing research used in the fight against cancer by creating a unique 'cocktail' of recombinant antibodies capable of preventing the virus from entering cells and removing it from circulation.

ESA's Sun-exploring mission Solar Orbiter, which carries instruments proposed, designed and built at UCL, has made its first close approach to the Sun on June 15, getting as close as 77 million km to the star's surface, about half the distance between the Sun and Earth. In the week following this first perihelion, the point in the orbit closest to the Sun, the mission scientists will test the spacecraft's ten science instruments to prove that Solar Orbiter's telescopes are ready for future scientific observations.

There is a faster decline in physical, mental and social function in people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, finds a large UCL-led cohort study. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) used a sample of 5,018 participants, aged 64 years on average, from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, first assessing them in 2004 and then eight years later in 2012.

Population-wide testing, contact tracing, and isolation (PTTI) in the UK could save 50,000 lives and £700bn of GDP over the next two years, finds research co-led by UCL, University of Edinburgh and University of Haifa. The non-peer reviewed, pre-print study uses mathematical and economical models to investigate 31 scenarios for tackling COVID-19 in the UK o ver the next two years to estimate the impact, costs, feasibility, and health and economic effects of different strategies.

Dr Natalie Marchant (UCL Psychiatry) explains how in a new study involving 292 patients aged 55 and older, her team's research found that persistent negative thinking was linked to a decline of cognitive reasoning and revealed indicators of Alzheimer's disease. Dementia affects an estimated 54 million people worldwide.

A new gene therapy approach holds promise for treating a common group of inherited eye disease, according to a new UCL and Trinity College Dublin study in lab-grown 'mini retinas'. The findings, published in Stem Cell Reports , may contribute to new treatments for retinitis pigmentosa (RP), which affects thousands of people worldwide.

The earliest playhouse in London may have been discovered at a site in Whitechapel, by a team of archaeologists from UCL. The elusive remains of what is thought to be the earliest Elizabethan playhouse, known as the Red Lion, were discovered by Archaeology South-East, part of UCL's Institute of Archaeology.

New research conducted by Professor Tim Blackburn (UCL Biosciences) and the Chinese Academy of Science have found that in many of the world's protected areas, non-native 'invasive species' were living close by. The human population is growing rapidly and making increasing demands on the planet for food, water and natural resources.

Protected areas across the globe are effectively keeping invasive animals at bay, but the large majority of them are at risk of invasions, finds a China-UK research team involving UCL. The research, led by the Chinese Academy of Science and published , show that for most protected areas, there is an invasive animal species living less than 10km away that is well suited to the protected area's environment.

Persistently engaging in negative thinking patterns may raise the risk of Alzheimer's disease, finds a new UCL-led study. In the study of people aged over 55, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia , researchers found 'repetitive negative thinking' (RNT) is linked to subsequent cognitive decline as well as the deposition of harmful brain proteins linked to Alzheimer's.

Virus DNA left on a hospital bed rail was found in nearly half of all sites sampled across a ward within 10 hours and persisted for at least five days, according to a new study by UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). The study, published as a letter in the Journal of Hospital Infection , aimed to safely simulate how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, may spread across surfaces in a hospital.