wire

Children locked down at home in the UK spend an average of 2.5 hours each day doing schoolwork, new research by UCL Institute of Education (IOE) suggests. This figure is about half that suggested by a previous survey, implying that learning losses are much greater than previously thought. In addition, the variability in the amount of schoolwork being done at home is adding to existing regional and socioeconomic inequalities.

The arguments over parliament's role in Brexit left "scars on our politics", at a time when public trust in our core democratic institutions is more crucial than ever in responding to the Covid-19 crisis, says a UCL and UK in a Changing Europe analysis.

Scientists at UCL will lead two 'flagship' studies, announced by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), which will investigate the link between Covid-19 and heart disease.

This week we meet Tao Bi, who is a PhD student in Human-Computer Interaction and a past winner of the #loveUCL Instagram competition.

Despite the relaxation of lockdown measures enabling many people to return to more normal activities, worries about catching the virus show little sign of changing, finds UCL's Covid-19 social study. During lockdown there has been a steady decline across the UK in worries about Covid-19. At the beginning, half of adults were worried about catching the virus and becoming seriously ill, and now just 35% are worried and only 15% are seriously worried, according to the ongoing study of over 90,000 adults carried out since the start of  the coronavirus pandemic.

The upcoming future strategy for conserving biodiversity must include a prominent target to lower extinction rates, according to group including UCL scientists. Biodiversity loss has continued unabated at an alarming rate, and so far, action to deliver on the global agreements in place has failed to prevent further declines.

UCL has today initiated the process of reviewing the current naming of spaces and buildings after two prominent eugenicists Francis Galton and Karl Pearson.

Dr Jasmina Panovska-Griffiths (UCL Epidemiology & Health) lists five reasons why the death toll in the UK from Covid-19 is higher than expected.

All providers of legal services in the UK, whether legally qualified or not, should be registered and regulated according to a major review of legal services, conducted by Stephen Mayson, Honorary Professor of Law at UCL.

Professor Ilan Kelman and Dr Bayes Ahmed (both UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction) discuss how Bangladesh's population survives cyclones through extensive messaging and preparation.

Children growing up in jobless households will be less likely to gain employment in an economic recession, according to a new cross-European study led by UCL and the University of Bath.

Transport researcher Nicole Badstuber (UCL Science & Technology Studies) co-authors a comment with Enrica Papa (University of Westminster) on alternative methods of travel post-lockdown.

Following a new report released by the UK Government which identifies risk factors in catching Covid-19, Professor Sir Michael Marmot (UCL Epidemiology & Health) adds that the more deprived the area, the higher the mortality from the coronavirus.

Transport researcher Nicole Badstuber (UCL Science & Technology Studies) co-authors a comment with Enrica Papa (University of Westminster) on alternative methods of travel post-lockdown.

Dr Anna Killick (UCL Political Science) discuss a survey which revealed that people living in the UK on lower incomes view the economy as a 'rigged' system that will continue after the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing inequalities between wealthier and poorer households to grow.

Most people believe themselves to be less at risk from Covid-19 than others of their own age and gender, indicating an optimism bias, according to a recent UCL survey conducted in the US. The findings, published as a pre-print on  PsyArXiv  ahead of peer review, also show that most people surveyed see Covid-19 as a grave danger to society.

The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter, which carries instruments proposed, designed and built at UCL, will cross through the tails of Comet ATLAS during the next few days in a chance encounter flagged to ESA by a team from the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory (UCL MSSL).

Strict adherence to Government Covid-19 lockdown guidelines and overall confidence in government are at all-time lows, according to UCL's Covid-19 social study of over 90,000 adults during the coronavirus epidemic.

A large international trial involving UCL and UCLH has found that pembrolizumab, a form of immunotherapy, more than doubled the 'progression free survival' time of patients with a specific subtype of advanced bowel cancer, when compared with chemotherapy. 'Progression free survival' is the length of time during and after the treatment of a disease, such as cancer, that a patient lives with the disease but it does not get worse.

Dr Julia Yesberg (UCL Security & Crime Science) and her colleagues discusse the results of a survey of 730 users of the NHS contact-tracing app being trialled in the Isle of Wight.

Dr Mine Orlu (UCL School of Pharmacy) and Dr Joe Grove (UCL Institute of Immunity & Transplantation) have been named to the World Economic Forum's Class of 2020 Young Scientists, a global list of exceptional researchers at the forefront of scientific discovery.

A pioneering policy priority tool for tracking progress towards the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has been developed by UCL in collaboration with a UK-Mexico team.

School closures, massive rates of job loss and furloughing, and a shift to working from home are all affecting how parents spend their time, and how mothers and fathers divide responsibilities for paid work, housework and childcare, finds a new study co-led by UCL.

Test, trace and isolate programmes could help control the spread of COVID-19 if test results are delivered quickly, contacts are traced and public compliance is high, finds a report co-authored by UCL's Professor Dame Anne Johnson.

This week we meet Affiliate Civil Engineering student Tobi Ayeni, who is studying abroad at UCL from Princeton University.

In a piece for the Guardian, Professor Anthony David (UCL Institute of Mental Health) writes about the potential mental health effects of Covid-19, partly based on new studies by Dr Jonathan Rogers (UCL Psychiatry) and Dr Daisy Fancourt (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health).

Professor Anthony Costello (UCL Institute for Global Health) calls for transparency and balance from the SAGE committees giving scientific advice to the UK Government during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Writing for The Conversation, Dr Dagmar Paulus (UCL SELCS) explains how German politicians are avoiding using war metaphors when discussing the Covid-19 virus.

A UCL team has been awarded £3.8 million from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to fund a new study in Lebanon and Kenya looking at the treatment of post-natal depression, child development, and the mother-child relationship.