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Heart tissue can be imaged in real-time during keyhole procedures using a new optical ultrasound needle developed by researchers at UCL and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). The revolutionary technology has been successfully used for minimally invasive heart surgery in pigs, giving an unprecedented, high-resolution view of soft tissues up to 2.5 cm in front of the instrument, inside the body.

What makes the ideal open-plan office? Researchers at UCL have used data analysis, video observation and surveys to study how we interact at work and come up with an answer.

Young people today are taking part in a wider range of sexual practices with opposite-sex partners compared to 20 years ago, according to new analysis by UCL and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Vaginal intercourse and oral sex remained the most common combination of sexual practices experienced in the past year by heterosexual couples, according to the study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

A new UCL study surveyed who uses food banks in London, and for what reasons. The study, published this week in the Journal of Public Health , found benefit-related problems were the most common reason, while recent adverse life events were also associated with food insecurity.

Health and social care spending cuts since 2010 are linked to nearly 120,000 excess deaths in England, with the over 60s and care home residents most affected, finds new UCL research. The study, published today in BMJ Open , stipulates that the critical factor in these figures may be changes in nurse numbers.

The risk of developing dementia is around 3.5 times higher in frail older adults than in their non-frail peers, according to a new study from UCL.

UCL scientists are seeking new links with Peking University (PKU) to create a new generation of "green" electronic devices that use nanotechnology to reduce the energy needed to generate their power.

UCL and King's College London are leading the establishment of a new policy research unit, the NIHR Mental Health Policy Research Unit, which will bring mental health researchers, clinicians, service users and carers closer together. The main aim of the unit is to provide research to inform policy makers.

A UCL academic with an illustrious Chinese ancestry has forged new links with China's top university by designing a course that will help teach future potential leaders from the West about China's history and culture.

UCL and Peking University (PKU) have extended their partnership by agreeing a new roadmap to tackle issues including creating a blueprint for sustainable cities, teaching Mandarin in English schools and reducing the occurrence of spina bifada, one of the world's most common birth defects.

They are universities situated in the heart of their respective capitals but are now to link up to create a premier research centre that aims to provide a blueprint for developing sustainable mega-cities around the world.

Professor Stephen Powis (UCL Division of Medicine) has been named medical director of NHS England. He is succeeding a fellow UCL academic, Sir Bruce Keogh, who was previously Professor of Cardiac Surgery at UCL and is stepping down from his post at the end of 2017.

Professor Sarah Tabrizi, director of the UCL Huntington's Disease Centre at the UCL Institute of Neurology, has received the 2017 International Leslie Gehry Brenner prize for Innovation in Science.

Professor Patrick Vallance, former head of medicine at UCL, has been appointed the UK government's Chief Scientific Adviser.

One mile beneath a mountain in the French Alps, an international team involving UCL scientists is hoping to unlock more secrets of the mysterious neutrino using a new, cutting-edge experiment called SuperNEMO. A UCL team helped to build the hardware and software being used by SuperNEMO - the Super Neutrino Ettore Majorana Observatory - which officially opens at Modane Underground Laboratory in the south of France today.

UCL's efforts to harness new technology in the battle to combat the "timebomb" of dementia worldwide were showcased in China this week. Professor Alan Thompson, Dean of UCL Brain Sciences, revealed four of the university's top researchers are using apps, neuro-imaging, machine learning, virtual reality and even emojis to help people cope with dementia, depression and other brain conditions.

As part of UCL Art Museum's exhibition The composition has been reversed , a group including curators, artists, a historian and a conservator met yesterday to discuss issues unique to the conservation of contemporary art.

In a UCL Lunch Hour Lecture delivered last week, Professor George Letsas, a specialist in the philosophy of law and human rights from UCL laws, set out some of the ethical underpinnings of the Brexit debate.

As part of the ongoing commitment to greater openness about animal research, the ten universities which conduct the most animal procedures have publicised their figures today, revealing that they collectively conducted a third of all UK animal research in 2016. All ten universities appear in the QS World University Ranking Top 100.

Group B Streptococcus infection causes an estimated 150,000 preventable stillbirths and infant deaths every year. 21.7 million pregnant women carry this bacteria according to the first global study of Group B Strep - most of them are currently unidentified and untreated. The study shows for first time that a maternal vaccine may prevent 231,000 infant and maternal GBS cases.

More than a third (34%) of women with bowel cancer in England were diagnosed after an emergency hospital visit compared to less than a third of men (30%), despite women having more red flag symptoms and more visits to their GP, according to UCL research. The research was presented at the 2017 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Liverpool.

UCL researchers have contributed to a report showing that climate change is already a significant public health issue and a looming global health emergency. The research findings, titled "From 25 years of inaction to a global transformation for public health" and outlined in The Lancet medical journal, demonstrate the various ways climate change is already affecting the health of people across the planet today.

A space mission called SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer), jointly developed by the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences with major UK involvement from UCL, has received additional funding from the UK Space Agency.

Jupiter's intense northern and southern lights pulse independently of each other according to new UCL-led research using ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra X-ray observatories. The study, published today in Nature Astronomy , found that very high-energy X-ray emissions at Jupiter's south pole consistently pulse every 11 minutes.

Childhood disadvantage is strongly associated with poorer adult mental wellbeing for Generation X, according to a UCL study. This remained the case even if they were able to overcome their childhood circumstances to climb the social ladder by early middle age. In contrast, Baby Boomers' childhood background was not linked to their wellbeing in adulthood.

Billions of dollars of financial investment in global conservation has significantly reduced biodiversity loss, according to a new UCL study.

Sadiq Khan, London's Mayor, marked the start of his T-charge on vehicles to combat city pollution by visiting UCL's nursery in Bloomsbury.

The decision by the Scottish government to ban smacking has been welcomed by UCL researchers whose report into the damage caused to children by physical punishment played a key part in framing the proposed new legislation. The research in 2015 by Anja Heilmann, Yvonne Kelly and Richard Watt from the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care showed that there was ample evidence that physical punishment can damage children and escalate into physical abuse.

BBC Research and Development has announced a five-year research partnership with eight UK Universities, including UCL, to unlock the potential of data in the media.

Slow internet speeds and the Internet 'rush hour' - the peak time when data speeds drop by up to 30% - could be history with new hardware designed and demonstrated by UCL researchers that provides consistently high-speed broadband connectivity.

The brain rapidly switches between operational modes in response to tasks and what is replayed can predict how well a task will be completed, according to a new UCL study in rats. "We know that the brain replays remembered experiences during rest to extract important information, this consolidation process preserves memories for recall in the future.

UCL Engineering and Technology has been ranked fourth in the UK and among the top 40 in the world in the latest world league tables by the Times Higher Education (THE).

Providing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication to men who have sex with men who are at high risk of HIV infection (equivalent to less than 5% of men who have sex with men at any point in time) in England would be cost-effective, and could help to prevent up to one in four cases of HIV, according to UCL research  The study, published in  The Lancet Infectious Diseases  journal today, finds that providing PrEP could become cost effective within 40 years of introduction, but timeframes may be even shorter if the cost of the drugs reduces as patents expire.

Hundreds of school pupils in England are on track towards fluency in Mandarin Chinese as part of a national language learning initiative which starts its second year this term.

Light and gravitational waves produced by the same event - a pair of neutron stars exploding - have been detected for the first time by a huge international collaboration involving UCL researchers. The outburst took place in a nearby galaxy called NGC 4993, located about 130 million light-years away in the direction of constellation Hydra.

UCL hosted BBC's flagship ethical programme The Moral Maze this week to mark 50 years of the Abortion Act with a lecturer from the university's Faculty of Laws acting as a specialist witness to the panel.