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A troublesome gene that is resistant to an antibiotic often used as a last resort has been tracked from its origins on Chinese pig farms to hospital patients worldwide in a new study led by UCL and Peking University People's Hospital. The study, published , found that the mcr-1 gene, now present across the globe, can be tracked to a single event around 2005 when it moved from pigs into pathogens that affect humans.

A new generation of brain scanner, that can be worn like a helmet allowing patients to move naturally whilst being scanned, has been developed by researchers at UCL and the University of Nottingham as a Wellcome-funded project. In a Nature paper published today, the researchers demonstrate that they can measure brain activity while people make natural movements, including nodding, stretching, drinking tea and even playing ping pong.

Macaques appear to select stone tools to crack open oil palm nuts based on the size and strength of their own body, rather than the optimum weight and size of the stone, to make the process more efficient, according to new research led by UCL.

Disadvantaged children born at the start of the 21st century weighed up to 5kg more in their childhood and early teenage years than those from more privileged backgrounds, a new UCL study has found. However, in previous generations lower social class was associated with lower childhood and adolescent weight.

The largest-ever survey of care home staff in England, led by UCL researchers, has found that neglectful behaviours are widespread. For the study, published today in PLOS ONE , care home staff were asked anonymously about positive and negative behaviours they had done or had witnessed colleagues doing.

The world's first continuous room-temperature solid-state maser has been developed by UCL and Imperial College London scientists. The breakthrough, made using a diamond held in a ring of sapphire, opens up the possibility for masers (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) being used in a wide variety of applications such as medical imaging and airport security scanning.

The first patients to receive a new treatment derived from stem cells for people with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) have regained reading vision according to a new study involving UCL. The results of this small but ground-breaking clinical study described the implantation of a specially engineered patch of retinal pigment epithelium cells derived from stem cells to treat people with sudden severe sight loss from wet AMD.

A large international study led by UCL and UCLH researchers, has found that an MRI scan and targeted prostate biopsies, are significantly better at making a positive prostate cancer diagnosis than standard biopsies. The PRECISION Trial randomly allocated 500 men with suspected prostate cancer from 23 international centres and found that using MRI to perform prostate biopsies leads to more of the harmful prostate cancers, and fewer harmless cancers being diagnosed, than the standard way of performing biopsies.

One-in-three adults in England and Northern Ireland (NI) cannot work out the correct change from a shopping trip, according to new research from UCL and University of Cambridge. The findings show that adults in England and NI perform worse on everyday financial numeracy tasks than adults in many other developed countries - even when using a calculator.

The human brain can take advantage of brain resources originally devoted to the hand to represent a prosthetic limb, a new UCL-led study concludes. Among people with only one hand, the brain area that enables us to recognise hands can also recognise a prosthetic hand, particularly among those who use a prosthesis regularly, according to the new Brain paper.

Major advances into how to protect and preserve a huge haul of cannonballs found on Henry VIII's flagship vessel The Mary Rose, have been made through a ground-breaking partnership between UCL, The Mary Rose and Diamond Light Source. The Mary Rose is a famous Tudor ship that sank in 1545 and was raised from the sea in 1982, when 1,200 cannonballs were discovered.

Only a select group of the world's top global health organisations have placed gender equality at the centre of their operations, according to a new report involving UCL researchers. The findings come from the new research and accountability initiative, Global Health 50/50, part funded by Wellcome and co-led by Professor Sarah Hawkes of UCL's Centre for Gender and Global Health and Dr Kent Buse of UNAIDS.

People are willing to travel 75 minutes longer for specialist cancer surgery if it reduces their risk of complications by 1%, according to new UCL-led research. The study, published today in the British Journal of Surgery, and funded by the NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Programme, analysed patients' and health professionals' preferences for centralising specialist cancer surgery services.

Animals living in volatile habitats can gain major evolutionary benefits by shielding their families from the changing environment, suggests research from UCL, the University of Bristol and University of Exeter. In a study , biologists investigated an overlooked reason for widespread cooperation amongst animals and found that when their environment is prone to fluctuate unexpectedly, staying at home to help raise relatives can be much better than going solo.

A dying worm experiences rigor mortis early in the death process, rather than after the main event as it is for humans, according to a new study by an international team of scientists at UCL and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study, published in the journal Cell Reports , is the first discovery of rigor mortis in worms and provides new insight into the process of 'organismal' death.

Scientists at UCL have explained for the first time the mystery of why adhesive tape is so useful for graphene production. The study, published in Advanced Materials , used supercomputers to model the process through which graphene sheets are exfoliated from graphite, the material in pencils. Graphene is known for being the strongest material in the world, lightweight and with extraordinary electrical, thermal and optical properties.

Beaker pottery and culture spread through large-scale migration of people and through the exchange of new ideas, according to new research by an international team involving UCL scientists. The study involved analysis of ancient-DNA data from 400 prehistoric skeletons drawn from sites across Europe. It is the largest study of ancient human DNA ever conducted.

Clocking up just a few minutes at a time of any level of physical activity, including of light intensity, is linked to a lower risk of death in older men, suggests UCL-led research. The study, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine , found that although there were greater benefits from doing moderate or more intense activity, even light intensity physical activity lowered the risk of death.

A UCL-led research team has identified the pattern of brain tissue loss in multiple sclerosis, enabling improved prediction of disability progression. The study, published in Annals of Neurology , was one of the largest brain imaging studies ever conducted investigating multiple sclerosis (MS). "It's well known that brain atrophy occurs in people with MS and varies by region, but we typically only measure the shrinkage of the whole brain.

New laser scanning technology is being used by UCL scientists to provide fresh and unprecedented insights into the structure and mass of trees, a development that will help plot how much carbon they absorb and how they might respond to climate change. Two studies, published today (Friday) by the Royal Society, by researchers at UCL and the universities of Oxford, Sonoma State, Ghent and Wageningen, reveal the technology has captured the 3D structure of individual trees in ways they have never been seen before.