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Adults over the age of 52 appear to be twice as likely to develop mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, alongside suffering from financial difficulties after contracting Covid-19, finds a new UCL-led study. The study, published in  PNAS , used data from 5,146 adults between the ages of 52 and 74 who participated in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, to examine the immediate and longer-term impact of Covid-19 infection on the mental health, wellbeing, social interactions, and financial outcomes of older adults.

Writing in The Conversation, Dr David Bann and Liam Wright (IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society) and Neil Davies (University of Bristol) explore the connection between genetics and social background and body weight in adulthood. There's long been a debate about whether genetics or the environment people are raised in is the biggest cause of obesity.

On Monday, NASA released the first full-colour image from the James Webb Space Telescope. More images and data followed Tuesday afternoon, which included spectrographic data taken by hardware in part designed and built at UCL.

Fossils discovered in Scotland represent some of the world's oldest salamanders, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. The research team analysed 166-million-year-old fossils of a type of animal called Marmorerpeton , found in Middle Jurassic rocks on the Isle of Skye. They found that it has several key salamander traits, but is not part of the modern group of salamanders.

Writing in The Conversation, Dr Vageesh Jain (UCL Institute for Global Health) looks at the connection between a country's democratic strength and the success of it's response to Covid-19. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that an effective response to an emergency of this nature goes beyond the health system.

Artificial intelligence models built to predict liver disease from blood tests are twice as likely to miss disease in women as in men, a new study by UCL researchers has found. The study, published in BMJ Health & Care Informatics and funded by UKRI, recreated four AI models documented in previous research as having a greater than 70% success rate in identifying liver disease from the results of blood tests.

The world's most sensitive dark matter experiment has gathered its first result, moving us a step closer to understanding one of the biggest mysteries of the Universe. It shows the experiment is successfully operating after years of set up by a team involving UCL researchers. The international project "LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Experiment (LZ)" based at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, US is intricately and innovatively designed to find direct evidence of dark matter - an invisible substance thought to make up most of the mass of the Universe.

Adolescents are over three times more vulnerable to developing a cannabis addiction than adults, but may not be at increased risk of other mental health problems related to the drug, finds a new study led by UCL and King's College London researchers. The study, published today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology , found that adolescents who used cannabis were no more likely to have higher levels of subclinical depression or anxiety than adults who use cannabis, nor were they more vulnerable than adult users to the associations with psychotic-like symptoms.

UCL is releasing its animal research statistics today in collaboration with Understanding Animal Research - a non-profit that promotes open communications about animal research. UCL and nine other institutions together conducted nearly half of all animal procedures - those used in medical, veterinary, and scientific research - in the UK in 2021.

Children in the UK and Republic of Ireland who are diagnosed with Wilms tumour - the most common children's kidney cancer - are less likely to survive without relapse than those in Germany and France due to later diagnosis, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, published in JCO Global Oncology , compared tumour size and stage of cancer at diagnosis with survival chances of 3,176 children with Wilms tumour.

Children conceived through medically assisted reproduction (MAR) fare better at school but are slightly more likely to have mental health problems by their late teens, finds a new study led by researchers at UCL and the University of Helsinki. The researchers say the correlation for mental health is  only  observed when the social demographics of children's families are taken into account, and that there is  no  evidence to suggest the MAR treatment itself is the source of association for mental health.

Even if global temperatures begin to decline after peaking this century because of climate change, the risks to biodiversity could persist for decades after, finds a new study by UCL and University of Cape Town researchers. The paper, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , models the potential impacts on global biodiversity if temperatures increase by more than 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels, before beginning to decline again.

Perinatal mood disorders such as postnatal depression and perinatal anxiety, may affect both mothers and fathers simultaneously, finds a new systematic review and meta-analysis* led by UCL researchers. Around 3 in 100 couples (3.18%) were found to both suffer from late postnatal depression, which occurs three to 12 months after a child is born.

A formidable space tourism industry may have a greater climate effect than the aviation industry and undo repair to the protective ozone layer if left unregulated, according to a new study led by UCL. Published today in the journal  Earth's Future , researchers from UCL, the University of Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used a 3D model to explore the impact of rocket launches and re-entry in 2019, and the impact of projected space tourism scenarios based on the recent billionaire space race.

A new path to help stop the spread of antibiotic resistance has been uncovered by a team led by UCL and Birkbeck researchers, in a move that could impact the lives of millions globally. The pioneering research the structure of the transport apparatus that enables the spread of antibiotic resistant genes between bacteria.

In Tibetan populations, parental decisions to make a son a Buddhist monk were guided by reproductive and economic considerations - not just by religious tradition - according to a new study led by UCL researchers. Published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B , anthropologists at UCL, in collaboration with researchers from Lanzhou University, China, explored lifelong religious celibacy in Tibetan monks in Western China.

Pregnant women who reported being infected with Covid-19 in their first trimester were more likely to have an early miscarriage, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. However, despite the correlation observed in the COVID-19 Contraception and Pregnancy Study (CAP-COVID), researchers say further studies are needed to evaluate any causal association between SARS-CoV-2 infection in early pregnancy and miscarriage risk.

Using sound to levitate something when there are other objects in the way has been shown for the first time by UCL researchers and could lead to advances in the manufacturing and entertainment sectors. The findings open up possibilities for more advanced interactive entertainment through virtual reality and mixed reality at theme parks, arcades and museums.

New research co-led by scientists at UCL, found that existing drugs modifying the effect of the hormone progesterone, such as mifepristone, could reduce the risk of aggressive "triple negative" breast cancer in women with an alteration of the BRCA1 gene. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is most common in women who have a BRCA1 mutation and this type of cancer affects 13 in every 100,000 women.

No clear relationship exists between GCSE test anxiety and exam performance among Year 11 pupils, a UCL study has found. Published today in the peer-reviewed journal  Oxford Review of Education , the study explores whether GCSE grades are lower amongst Year 11 pupils (15/16-year-olds) who suffer from high levels of test anxiety.