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An international team led by researchers at the UCL Institute of Neurology has identified a set of tests that could help identify whether - and how - Huntington's disease (HD) is progressing in groups of people who are not yet showing symptoms. The latest findings from the TRACK-HD study are published in The Lancet Neurology and could be used to assess whether potential new treatments are slowing the disease up to 10 years before the development of noticeable symptoms.

When children with conduct problems see images of others in pain, key parts of their brains under-react, according to new research published today in Current Biology. The study, led by researchers at the UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, found these children show reduced responses in three areas of the brain associated with empathy for pain when looking at pictures of others in pain.

The behaviour of seabirds during migration - including patterns of foraging, rest and flight - has been revealed in new detail using novel computational analyses and tracking technologies. Using a new method called 'ethoinformatics', described as the application of computational methods in the investigation of animal behaviour, scientists have been able to analyse three years of migration data gathered from miniature tracking devices attached to the small seabird the Manx Shearwater ( Puffinus puffinus ).

Predicting the winner of a sporting event with accuracy close to that of a statistical computer programme could be possible with proper training, according to researchers. In a study published today, experiment participants who had been trained on statistically idealised data vastly improved their ability to predict the outcome of a baseball game.

Light drinking during pregnancy is not linked to adverse behavioural or cognitive outcomes in childhood, suggests a new study published today. Authors of the study, from UCL Epidemiology & Public Health, collated data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a national study of infants born in the UK between 2000-2002, to assess whether light drinking (up to two units of alcohol per week) in pregnancy was linked to unfavourable developmental outcomes in 7-year-old children.

Scientists have discovered how bacteria transport the tiny hair-like strands, called pili, which cover their outer surface from the inside of the cell, where they are assembled, to the exterior. Pili are a key target for a new generation of antibiotics, as without them the bacteria are unable to group together and to stick to human cells causing infection.

A huge pool of warm water that stretched out from Indonesia over to Africa and South America four million years ago suggests climate models might be too conservative in forecasting tropical changes.Present in the Pliocene era, this giant mass of water would have dramatically altered rainfall in the tropics, possibly even removing the monsoon.

By introducing individual silicon atom 'defects' using a scanning tunnelling microscope, scientists at the London Centre for Nanotechnology have coupled single atoms to form quantum states. , the study demonstrates the viability of engineering atomic-scale quantum states on the surface of silicon - an important step toward the fabrication of devices at the single-atom limit.

Childhood body weight is strongly influenced by genes according to new research published today in the International Journal of Obesity . Previous research has shown that obesity runs in families, and twin studies suggest that this is largely due to genetic factors, with heritability estimates over 50%.

A dedicated team of intensive care doctors, nurses and scientists are taking over 200 people to the Himalayas to study how our bodies respond to low levels of oxygen. Researchers from UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine (CASE) will lead the team on a trek to three locations in the Himalayas: Everest Base Camp, Namche Bazaar and Kathmandu.

New research, published in Neuron , gives insight into how single mutations in the VCP gene cause a range of neurological conditions including a form of dementia called Inclusion Body Myopathy, Paget's Disease of the Bone and Frontotemporal Dementia (IBMPFD), and the motor neuron disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Archeologists have found that the original Stonehenge was a graveyard for a community of elite families built 500 years earlier than the site we know today. The new discovery has finally solved many of the mysteries surrounding Stonehenge, overturning the accepted view on construction and use of our greatest prehistoric monument.

Bowel cancer cells missing one of three genes can rapidly reshuffle their genetic 'pack of cards' - the chromosomes that hold the cell's genetic information. This reshuffling has been previously shown to render tumours more resistant to treatment. New research shows that this genetic 'card trick' can be caused by the deletion of three genes found on one particular chromosome, a region known as '18q'.

Alcohol consumption could be much higher than previously thought, with more than three quarters of people in England drinking in excess of the recommended daily alcohol limit, according to a new paper in the European Journal of Public Health . The study, conducted by researchers in the UCL Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, is the first to investigate the potential public health implications related to the under-reporting of alcohol consumption.

Individuals with psychogenic disease (i.e. physical illness stemming from emotional or mental stresses) have brains that function differently to people with organic diseases, according to new research from UCL and the University of Cambridge. Psychogenic diseases, formerly known as 'hysterical' illnesses, may look very similar to genetic diseases of the nervous system or to illnesses caused by damage to the nerves, brain or muscles.

A substantial proportion of individuals with a clinical diagnosis of Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH) inherit a combination of small-effect changes in several genes (polygenic) rather than a large-effect mutation in a single gene (monogenic), according to a new paper in The Lancet . The findings have implications for the majority of national guidelines on family screening for FH, that advocate testing relatives of all individuals with a clinical diagnosis of FH, including those of the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

Between 1990 and 2010 new HIV infections in the UK rose in men who have sex with men (MSM). The rise was driven by a 26 per cent increase in the proportion having condomless sex, according to new research by UCL and the Health Protection Agency. However, the findings suggest the increase in new infections would have been 68 per cent greater without the introduction of antiretrovirals (ART) in the same period, and 400 per cent greater if MSM condom use had ceased entirely from 2000 onwards.

Research shows that a new scan offering patients a less invasive diagnostic test for possible bowel cancer is more effective than the current radiological standard of barium enema and should be considered alongside the 'gold standard' of colonoscopy. Computed tomographic colonography is the name of the newer procedure.

Arctic sea ice volume has declined by 36 per cent in the autumn and 9 per cent in the winter between 2003 and 2012, a UK-led team of scientists has discovered. Researchers from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at UCL used new data from the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite spanning 2010 to 2012, and data from NASA's ICESat satellite from 2003 to 2008 to estimate the volume of sea ice in the Arctic.

Work-related stress is not directly linked to the development of colorectal, lung, breast or prostate cancers, but can cause other contributing factors, according to a new study published on bmj.com Around 90 per cent of cancers are linked to environmental exposures and whilst some exposures are well recognised (such as UV radiation and tobacco smoke), others are not (psychological factors such as stress).