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The gender of a young father's firstborn child affects the likelihood of both him and his friends committing crime, a UCL-led study has found. For the first time, researchers established that young fathers who have a firstborn son rather than a daughter are convicted of fewer crimes in subsequent years, and crucially that this reduction also leads to a drop in criminal convictions among peers living in the same neighbourhood.

A Triassic herbivore, known for its supposed similarities to a modern-day ostrich, has been revealed to have an entirely different approach to feeding from previously thought, according to research involving UCL and University of Birmingham researchers. The new findings, published in The Anatomical Record , reveal a much broader diversity of herbivore behaviour during the Triassic period than has been recognised to date.

Women are more likely than men to struggle with both regular daily tasks and mobility activities as they age, according to new analysis of longitudinal cohort studies led by researchers at UCL and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in France. However, the researchers say disparities in ability to perform daily tasks have been steadily decreasing as the socioeconomic gap between the sexes has decreased.

Just three minutes of exposure to deep red light once a week, when delivered in the morning, can significantly improve declining eyesight, finds a pioneering new study by UCL researchers. Published in  Scientific Reports , the study builds on the team's previous work*, which showed daily three-minute exposure to longwave deep red light 'switched on' energy producing mitochondria cells in the human retina, helping boost naturally declining vision.

An unborn baby could become infected with Covid-19 if their gut is exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, finds a new study led by UCL researchers with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the NIHR Great Ormond Street Biomedical Research Centre. Although the study did not look specifically at mothers with Covid-19 and whether their infection was transmitted to an unborn baby, it found that certain fetal organs, such as the intestine, are more susceptible to infection than others.

People who survive cancer early in their life have higher risks of ill health as they grow older, and these risks vary according to the cancer type and how the cancer was treated, a new study by UCL researchers has found. The researchers are now calling for these long-term health effects to be considered when young people and their families discuss treatment options with their healthcare team initially.

An international team involving UCL researchers has developed a computer model of the powerful jets released by the M87 black hole, matching the observations of astronomers and providing new support for the theory of general relativity. The black hole launches a jet of plasma at very close to the speed of light, a so-called relativistic jet, over a distance of more than 6,000 light years (that is, the jet extends beyond the giant galaxy in which the black hole resides).

Human-caused bird extinctions are driving losses of functional diversity on islands worldwide, and the gaps they leave behind are not being filled by introduced (alien) species, finds a new study led by UCL and University of Gothenburg researchers. The study, published in Science Advances , shows how human impacts such as habitat destruction and climate change are impoverishing ecosystems, even on islands where alien birds actually outnumber the species that have gone extinct.

Help us measure the impact our staff have through volunteering in London The  Pro-Provost (London) Office  has released a survey, open to all staff at UCL, aimed at measuring the volunteering impact UCL staff have in London. We know that many of you already contribute a significant amount of your time to London and its communities, whether that is through sitting on a variety of boards and committees or volunteering for charities and in the local community.

Babies who were given nutritionally modified formula milk had the same maths and English exam results as children who were given standard formula milk by age 16, finds a major new study led by UCL researchers that links seven randomised controlled trials to school performance re Scientists from the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (GOS ICH) and the UCL Institute of Education, who published their findings in the BMJ today, used a

Next generation vaccines for Covid-19 should aim to induce an immune response against 'replication proteins', essential for the very earliest stages of the viral cycle, concludes new research carried out by UCL scientists. By designing vaccines that activate immune memory cells, known as T cells, to attack infected cells expressing this part of the virus's internal machinery, it may be possible to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 at the very outset, thereby helping stop its spread.

The capabilities of a UCL-led panoramic camera system that will guide the search for life on Mars atop the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover are being tested ahead of the rover's launch next year. A replica of the rover and the Panoramic Camera suite known as PanCam are being used to test the wide range of photo settings - from panoramas to close-ups, from 3D maps to wheel selfies - that will deliver the greatest science possible during the ExoMars mission on the Red Planet.

Significant increases seen in teenagers' mental ill-health during secondary school is mostly likely linked to growing older, rather than academic and peer pressures associated with being in a more senior year group, finds a new study of over 40,000 young people led by UCL. Published in the British Educational Research Journal, the study provides one of the most detailed investigations into the link between mental health and school year, and finds mental ill-health is particularly prevalent among girls during secondary education.

The damage caused by Covid-19 to the lungs' smallest blood vessels has been intricately captured using high-energy X-rays emitted by a special type of particle accelerator. Scientists from UCL and the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF) used a new revolutionary imaging technology called Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT), to scan donated human organs, including lungs from a Covid-19 donor.

Children being discharged from hospital with pneumonia can be treated with three days of antibiotics rather than seven, finds a large UK-wide trial led by UCL. The results of the multi-site CAP-IT trial, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association , show that the number of doses given to children at home can be reduced safely, without impacting recovery.

A therapeutic antibody developed by scientists at UCL has been shown to unblock and normalise blood vessels inside cancerous tumours, enabling the more effective delivery of targeted cancer treatments. The findings in mice, published in the journal  MED , are the first to demonstrate that inhibiting the activity of LRG1, a protein produced in many tumorous tissues, liberates disorganised angiogenesis (blood vessel formation) - a leading cause of morbidity in numerous diseases including cancer.

Rising global temperatures will impact major river basins differently around the world, with rivers in South America, southern Africa and Australia among those most at risk of extreme ecological changes, a new study led by UCL has found. For the first time, researchers from UCL Geography, the University of Nottingham and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology combined large datasets with an environmental flow approach to predict how changes of between 1-3°C in the Earth's temperature would impact 321 of the world's biggest river basins.

Honeybees increase social distancing when their hive is under threat from a parasite, finds a new study led by an international team involving researchers at UCL and the University of Sassari, Italy. The study, published in Science Advances , demonstrated that honeybee colonies respond to infestation from a harmful mite by modifying the use of space and the interactions between nestmates to increase the social distance between young and old bees.

Global warming has caused extreme ice melting events in Greenland to become more frequent and intense over the past 40 years, raising sea levels and flood risk worldwide, finds new research involving UCL academics. Over the past decade alone, 3.5 trillion tonnes of ice has melted from Greenland's surface and flowed into the ocean - enough to cover the UK with around 15m of meltwater, or all of New York City with around 4500m.

There are clear and enduring regional divides across Great Britain, finds an intergenerational assessment of the social mobility of British families between 1851 and 2016, carried out by UCL researchers at the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC). Professor Paul Longley, Dr Justin Van Dijk and Dr Tian Lan (all UCL Geography) created GB Names which allows users to chart exactly where their family group has been based across Britain from 1851 to the present day.