Research in the University of Cambridge

From measles and flu to SARS and COVID, mathematicians help us understand and predict the epidemics that can spread through our communities, and to help us look at strategies that we may be able to use to contain them.

The project, called Contagious Maths, was led by Professor Julia Gog from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), and was supported by a Rosalind Franklin Award from the Royal Society.

The curriculum-linked resources will give students between the ages 11 and 14 the opportunity to join researchers on the mathematical frontline to learn more about infectious disease spread, along with interactive tools to try mathematical modelling for themselves. Teachers receive full lesson plans, backed up by Cambridge research.

“I’ve always loved maths. I was lucky enough to have amazing teachers at sixth form who challenged me and were 100% behind me pursuing maths at the highest level, but maths as it’s taught in school can be highly abstract, so students often wonder what the point of maths even is,” said Gog, who is also Director of the Millennium Maths Project. “This is something I’m trying to help with now: to offer a glimpse from school to the research world to see the role mathematics can play in tackling important real-world problems.”

The Contagious Maths project introduces mathematical modelling; explores how mathematicians can model the spread of disease through a population and the type of questions we might think about when looking at models; and gives an insight into what mathematics researchers working on these real-life problems actually do.

“I’ve been engaged in outreach for many years at Cambridge, and the Contagious Maths project grew out of discussions with colleagues who have expertise in reaching school-age children,” said Gog. “The 11-14 age group we are targeting is a real crunch point for retaining girls in maths, and future female mathematicians. What exactly happens is complex and multifaceted, but this is a period when people form their views on how they fit with maths and science.

“Many of them disengage, as it can seem that maths at school is utterly disconnected from the real world. It can also be a time when maths appears very starkly right or wrong, whereas any research mathematician can tell you it’s always so much more subtle that than, and therefore so much more interesting!”

Gog hopes the Contagious Maths resources might be able to help, as they are designed to be used in regular school lessons, and cover a topic with clear real-world importance.

“The maths is never black and white in this field: there are always ways to challenge and develop the models, and some tricky thinking to be done about how the real epidemics and the simulations are really related to each other,” she said. “I suspect some students will find this frustrating, and just want maths to be algorithmic exercises. But some will be intrigued, and they are the ones we are trying to reach and expose to this larger world of applied maths research.”

Contagious Maths also provides teachers with all the ideas and tools they need, so they have at their fingertips all they need to deliver these lessons, even if they have no experience with research mathematics. “We hope this project will help these teachers to bring in the wider view of mathematics, and we hope it inspires them too,” said Gog. “It’s been really fun developing these resources, teaming up with both NRICH and Plus to make the most of our combined expertise.”

Maths teachers can attend a free online event on 20 March to learn more about the project.

In addition to the school resources, Gog and her colleagues have designed another version of Contagious Maths for a more general self-guided audience, which will work for students older than 14 or anyone, of any age, who is interested in learning about mathematical modelling.

“The paradox between the cleanness and precision of mathematics, and the utter hot mess of anything that involves biological dynamics across populations – like an outbreak of an infectious disease, is what intrigued me to stay in mathematics beyond my degree, and to move into research in mathematical biology,” said Gog. “Elegant theoretical ideas can tell us something valuable and universal about mitigating the devastating effects of disease on human and animal populations. Super abstract equations can hold fundamental truths about real-world problems - I don't think I will ever tire of thinking about that.”

Adapted from a Royal Society interview with Professor Julia Gog.

Cambridge mathematicians have developed a set of resources for students and teachers that will help them understand how maths can help tackle infectious diseases.

Orbon Alija via Getty ImagesAerial view of crowd connected by lines

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Yes

The work, published in Nature, provides insights into cancer progression and neurodegenerative diseases as well as a potential therapeutic avenue in the form of a protein inhibitor.

The genome contains all the genes and genetic material within an organism's cells. When the genome is stable, cells can accurately replicate and divide, passing on correct genetic information to the next generation of cells. Despite its significance, little is understood about the genetic factors governing genome stability, protection, repair, and the prevention of DNA damage.

In this new study, researchers from the UK Dementia Research Institute, at the University of Cambridge, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute set out to better understand the biology of cellular health and identify genes key to maintaining genome stability.

Using a set of genetically modified mouse lines, the team identified 145 genes that play key roles in either increasing or decreasing the formation of abnormal micronuclei structures. These structures indicate genomic instability and DNA damage, and are common hallmarks of ageing and diseases.

The most dramatic increases in genomic instability were seen when the researchers knocked out the gene DSCC1, increasing abnormal micronuclei formation five-fold. Mice lacking this gene mirrored characteristics akin to human patients with a number of rare genetic disorders, further emphasising the relevance of this research to human health.

Using CRISPR screening, researchers showed this effect triggered by DSCC1 loss could be partially reversed through inhibiting protein SIRT1. This offers a highly promising avenue for the development of new therapies.

The findings help shed light on genetic factors influencing the health of human genomes over a lifespan and disease development.

Professor Gabriel Balmus, senior author of the study at the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, formerly at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “Continued exploration on genomic instability is vital to develop tailored treatments that tackle the root genetic causes, with the goal of improving outcomes and the overall quality of life for individuals across various conditions.”

Dr David Adams, first author of the study at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “Genomic stability is central to the health of cells, influencing a spectrum of diseases from cancer to neurodegeneration, yet this has been a relatively underexplored area of research. This work, of 15 years in the making, exemplifies what can be learned from large-scale, unbiased genetic screening. The 145 identified genes, especially those tied to human disease, offer promising targets for developing new therapies for genome instability-driven diseases like cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders.”

This research was supported by Wellcome and the UK Dementia Research Institute.

Reference
Adams, DJ et al. Genetic determinants of micronucleus formation in vivo. Nature; 14 Feb 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-07009-0

Adapted from a press release from the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

Cambridge scientists have identified more than one hundred key genes linked to DNA damage through systematic screening of nearly 1,000 genetically modified mouse lines.

Continued exploration on genomic instability is vital to develop tailored treatments that tackle the root genetic causesGabriel BalmusqimonoDNA puzzle

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YesLicence type: Public Domain

The University of Cambridge study used data about the physical activity participation of more than a million five-to-17-year-olds internationally. It found that in countries where a majority of schools require students to wear uniforms, fewer young people tend to meet the average of 60 minutes of physical activity per day recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Regardless of uniform policies, across most countries fewer girls than boys reach those recommended exercise levels. Among primary school students, however, the difference in activity between girls and boys was found to be wider in countries where most schools mandated uniforms. The same result was not found in secondary school-aged students.

The authors suggest that this could be explained by the fact that younger children get more incidental exercise throughout the school day than older students; for example, through running, climbing and various other forms of active play at break and lunchtimes. There is already evidence that girls feel less comfortable in participating in active play if they are wearing certain types of clothing, such as skirts or dresses.

Importantly, the results do not definitively prove that school uniforms limit children’s physical activity and the researchers stress that “causation cannot be inferred”. Previous, smaller studies however provide support for these findings, indicating that uniforms could pose a barrier. For the first time, the research examines large-scale statistical evidence to assess that claim.

The study was led by Dr Mairead Ryan, a researcher at the Faculty of Education and Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge.

“Schools often prefer to use uniforms for various reasons,” Dr Ryan said. “We are not trying to suggest a blanket ban on them, but to present new evidence to support decision-making. School communities could consider design, and whether specific characteristics of a uniform might either encourage or restrict any opportunities for physical activity across the day.”

The WHO recommends that young people get an average of 60 minutes of at least moderate-intensity physical activity per day during the week. The study confirms previous observations that most children and adolescents are not meeting this recommendation, especially girls. The difference in the percentage of boys and girls meeting physical activity guidelines across all countries was, on average, 7.6 percentage points.

Existing evidence suggests that uniforms could be a factor. Previous concerns have, for example, been raised about girls’ PE uniforms and school sports kits. A 2021 study in England found that the design of girls’ PE uniforms deterred students from participating in certain activities, while the hockey player Tess Howard proposed redesigning gendered sports uniforms for similar reasons, after analysing interview and survey data.

Children often get their exercise away from PE and sports lessons, however.

“Activities like walking or cycling to school, breaktime games, and after-school outdoor play can all help young people incorporate physical activity into their daily routines,” Ryan said. “That’s why we are interested in the extent to which various elements of young people’s environments, including what they wear, encourage such behaviours.”

The study analysed existing data on the physical activity levels of nearly 1.1 million young people aged five to 17 in 135 countries and combined this with newly collected data on how common the use of school uniforms is in these countries.

In over 75% of the countries surveyed, a majority of schools required their students to wear uniforms. The study found that in these countries, physical activity participation was lower. The median proportion of all students meeting the WHO recommendations in countries where uniform-wearing was the norm was 16%; this rose to 19.5% in countries where uniforms were less common.

There was a consistent gender gap between boys’ and girls’ physical activity levels, with boys 1.5 times more likely to meet WHO recommendations across all ages. However, the gap widened from 5.5 percentage points at primary school level in non-uniform countries to a 9.8 percentage point difference in countries where uniforms were required in most schools.

The finding appears to match evidence from other studies suggesting that girls are more self-conscious about engaging in physical activity when wearing uniforms in which they do not feel comfortable.

“Girls might feel less confident about doing things like cartwheels and tumbles in the playground, or riding a bike on a windy day, if they are wearing a skirt or dress,” said senior author Dr Esther van Sluijs, MRC Investigator. “Social norms and expectations tend to influence what they feel they can do in these clothes. Unfortunately, when it comes to promoting physical health, that’s a problem.”

The authors of the study argue that there is now enough evidence to warrant further investigation into whether there is a causal relationship between school uniforms and lower activity levels. They also highlight the importance of regular physical activity for all young people, regardless of their gender.

“Regular physical activity helps support multiple physical, mental, and well-being needs, as well as academic outcomes,” Dr Ryan said. “We now need more information to build on these findings, considering factors like how long students wear their uniforms for after school, whether this varies depending on their background, and how broader gendered clothing norms may impact their activity.”

The findings are reported in the Journal of Sport and Health Science.

School uniform policies could be restricting young people from being active, particularly primary school-aged girls, new research suggests.

Social norms and expectations tend to influence what they feel they can do in these clothes. Unfortunately, when it comes to promoting physical health, that’s a problemEsther van SluijsThirdmanSchool children watching a sports game from indoors

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YesLicence type: Public Domain

Semiconductors, also known as microchips, are a key component in nearly every electrical device from mobile phones and medical equipment to electric vehicles.

They are increasingly being recognised as an area of global strategic significance due to the integral role they play in net zero, AI and quantum technology.

Co-created and delivered with industry, the REWIRE IKC is led by the University of Bristol, in partnership with Cambridge and Warwick Universities.

The IKC will accelerate the UK’s ambition for net zero by transforming the next generation of high-voltage electronic devices using wide/ultra-wide bandgap (WBG/UWBG) compound semiconductors.

The project is being led by Professor Martin Kuball and his team at the University of Bristol. Cambridge members of the IKC team include Professors Rachel Oliver, Florian Udrea and Teng Long.

The centre will advance the next generation of semiconductor power device technologies and enhance the security of the UK’s semiconductor supply chain.

Compound semiconductor WBG/UWBG devices have been recognised in the UK National Semiconductor Strategy as key elements to support the net zero economy through the development of high voltage and low energy-loss power electronic technology.

They are essential building blocks for developing all-electric trains, ships and heavy goods electric vehicles, better charging infrastructure, renewable energy and High Voltage Direct Current grid connections, as well as intelligent power distribution and energy supplies to telecommunication networks and data centres.

“Power devices are at the centre of all power electronic systems and pave the way for more efficient and compact power electronic systems, reducing energy loss,” said Kuball. “The REWIRE IKC will focus on power conversion of wind energy, electric vehicles, smart grids, high-temperature applications, device and packaging, and improving the efficiency of semiconductor device manufacture.”

Our home electrical supply is at 240 Volts, but to handle the power from offshore wind turbines, devices will have to operate at thousands of Volts. These very high voltages can easily damage the materials normally used in power electronics.

“Newly emerging ultra-wide bandgap materials have properties which enable them to handle very large voltages more easily,” said Oliver, who Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride. “The devices based on these materials will waste less energy and be smaller, lighter and cheaper. The same materials can also withstand high temperatures and doses of radiation, which means they can be used to enable other new electricity generation technologies, such as fusion energy.”

“The REWIRE IKC will play a prominent role within the UK’s semiconductor strategy, in cementing the UK’s place as a leader in compound semiconductor research and development, developing IP to be exploited here in the UK, rebuilding the UK semiconductor supply chain, and training the next generation of semiconductor materials scientists and engineers,” said Professor Peter Gammon from the University of Warwick.

Industry partners in the REWIRE IKC include Ampaire, BMW, Bosch, Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD), Element-Six Technologies, General Electric, Hitachi Energy, IQE, Oxford Instruments, Siemens, ST Microelectronics and Toshiba.

REWIRE is one of two new IKCs announced being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Innovate UK, both part of UK Research and Innovation. The second IKC at the University of Southampton will improve development and commercialisation of silicon photonics technologies in the UK.

“This investment marks a crucial step in advancing our ambitions for the semiconductor industry, with these centres helping bring new technologies to market in areas like net zero and AI, rooting them right here in the UK,” said Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy Saqib Bhatti. “Just nine months into delivering on the National Semiconductor Strategy, we’re already making rapid progress towards our goals. This isn’t just about fostering growth and creating high-skilled jobs, it's about positioning the UK as a hub of global innovation, setting the stage for breakthroughs that have worldwide impact.”

Adapted from a University of Bristol media release.

For more information on energy-related research in Cambridge, please visit the Energy IRC, which brings together Cambridge’s research knowledge and expertise, in collaboration with global partners, to create solutions for a sustainable and resilient energy landscape for generations to come.

The University of Cambridge is a partner in the new £11m Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC) REWIRE, set to deliver pioneering semiconductor technologies and new electronic devices.

Yuichiro Chino via Getty ImagesRobot arms and semiconductor wafer

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Yes

UKRI funding of £3 million is awarded today to support a new research cluster, as part of the MRC National Mouse Genetics Network (MRC NMGN), focused on improving existing models of ageing with the aim of improving lifelong health and wellbeing. The cluster is led by scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Newcastle.

The MRC NMGN focuses on age-related biological changes in model organisms, particularly the mouse, to try and improve our understanding and diagnosis of the most challenging disease area of our time - and generate therapeutic avenues.

This award brings the UKRI’s total investment in the MRC NMGN to £25 million.

The need to improve how people age has become a major requirement of modern societies. Regular increases in life expectancy result in older populations, making healthy ageing essential for a better quality of life and a reduced burden on health and social services. 

Understanding the biological mechanisms underlying the ageing process is paramount for tackling the challenges brought about by our older populations.

The new tools generated as a result of this research will be made available to the scientific community to improve understanding of the ageing process, and to provide a resource for preclinical testing and intervention.

Professor Walid Khaled from Cambridge’s Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and Department of Pharmacology, and Co-lead of the new MRC National Mouse Genetics Network Ageing Cluster, said: “I am very pleased to be co-leading this project from Cambridge and I am looking forward to working with the rest of the team from around the UK. ‘Prevention is better than cure’ and so our project will generate a reference map that we will use in the future to assess interventions that could prevent ageing related health decline.”

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research & International Partnerships) and Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge, said: "Collaboration is central to our research activities in Cambridge. The new Ageing Cluster is a fine example of multiple institutions working together to add value and bring exciting new insight and expertise to advance the critically important field of healthy ageing. I am proud to be part of this important initiative which can deliver new routes to improved health span."

Professor David Burn, Pro Vice Chancellor, Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University, added: "I am delighted that Newcastle University is an important part of the UKRI Mouse Genetics Network Ageing Cluster.  This cluster offers researchers the opportunity to develop new animal models so that we may better understand ageing.  This, in turn, will allow us to translate this research into extending healthy lifespan in humans in the future.”

The University is bringing together its world leading expertise to tackle the topic of extending the healthy lifespan. Scientists in the School of Biological Sciences are addressing some of the biggest questions in human biology, including: What if we could identify those at risk of developing chronic age-related conditions before they present in the clinic? What if we could intervene before any symptoms arise and prevent disease onset?

UKRI’s strategy for 2022-2027 aims to harness the full power of the UK’s research and innovation system to tackle major national and global challenges. A total of £75m has been allocated to the theme of Securing better health, ageing and wellbeing, which aims to improve population health, tackle the health inequalities affecting people and communities, and advance interventions that keep us healthier for longer.

Read more about Cambridge research into extending the healthy lifespan.

The University of Cambridge has received UKRI funding for research on age-related biological changes in model organisms as part of a national collaboration.

‘Prevention is better than cure’ and so our project will generate a reference map that we will use in the future to assess interventions that could prevent ageing related health declineWalid KhaledUnderstanding Animal ResearchBrown GM mouse on hand

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YesLicence type: Attribution

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed sensors made from highly porous materials known as aerogels. By precisely engineering the shape of the holes in the aerogels, the sensors were able to detect the fingerprint of formaldehyde, a common indoor air pollutant, at room temperature.

The proof-of-concept sensors, which require minimal power, could be adapted to detect a wide range of hazardous gases, and could also be miniaturised for wearable and healthcare applications. The results are reported in the journal Science Advances.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a major source of indoor air pollution, causing watery eyes, burning in the eyes and throat, and difficulty breathing at elevated levels. High concentrations can trigger attacks in people with asthma, and prolonged exposure may cause certain cancers.

Formaldehyde is a common VOC and is emitted by household items including pressed wood products (such as MDF), wallpapers and paints, and some synthetic fabrics. For the most part, the levels of formaldehyde emitted by these items are low, but levels can build up over time, especially in garages where paints and other formaldehyde-emitting products are more likely to be stored.

According to a 2019 report from the campaign group Clean Air Day, a fifth of households in the UK showed notable concentrations of formaldehyde, with 13% of residences surpassing the recommended limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

“VOCs such as formaldehyde can lead to serious health problems with prolonged exposure even at low concentrations, but current sensors don’t have the sensitivity or selectivity to distinguish between VOCs that have different impacts on health,” said Professor Tawfique Hasan from the Cambridge Graphene Centre, who led the research.

“We wanted to develop a sensor that is small and doesn’t use much power, but can selectively detect formaldehyde at low concentrations,” said Zhuo Chen, the paper’s first author.

The researchers based their sensors on aerogels: ultra-light materials sometimes referred to as ‘liquid smoke’, since they are more than 99% air by volume. The open structure of aerogels allows gases to easily move in and out. By precisely engineering the shape, or morphology, of the holes, the aerogels can act as highly effective sensors.

Working with colleagues at Warwick University, the Cambridge researchers optimised the composition and structure of the aerogels to increase their sensitivity to formaldehyde, making them into filaments about three times the width of a human hair. The researchers 3D printed lines of a paste made from graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon, and then freeze-dried the graphene paste to form the holes in the final aerogel structure. The aerogels also incorporate tiny semiconductors known as quantum dots.

The sensors they developed were able to detect formaldehyde at concentrations as low as eight parts per billion, which is 0.4 percent of the level deemed safe in UK workplaces. The sensors also work at room temperature, consuming very low power.

“Traditional gas sensors need to be heated up, but because of the way we’ve engineered the materials, our sensors work incredibly well at room temperature, so they use between 10 and 100 times less power than other sensors,” said Chen.

To improve selectivity, the researchers then incorporated machine learning algorithms into the sensors. The algorithms were trained to detect the ‘fingerprint’ of different gases, so that the sensor was able to distinguish the fingerprint of formaldehyde from other VOCs.

“Existing VOC detectors are blunt instruments – you only get one number for the overall concentration in the air,” said Hasan. “By building a sensor that can detect specific VOCs at very low concentrations in real time, it can give home and business owners a more accurate picture of air quality and any potential health risks.”

The researchers say the same technique could be used to develop sensors to detect other VOCs. In theory, a device the size of a standard household carbon monoxide detector could incorporate multiple different sensors within it, providing real-time information about a range of different hazardous gases. The team at Warwick are developing a low-cost multi-sensor platform that will incorporate these new aerogel materials and, coupled with AI algorithms, detect different VOCs.

“By using highly porous materials as the sensing element, we’re opening up whole new ways of detecting hazardous materials in our environment,” said Chen.

The research was supported in part by the Henry Royce Institute, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Tawfique Hasan is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.

Reference:
Zhuo Chen et al. ‘Real-time, noise and drift resilient formaldehyde sensing at room temperature with aerogel filaments.’ Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk6856

Researchers have developed a sensor made from ‘frozen smoke’ that uses artificial intelligence techniques to detect formaldehyde in real time at concentrations as low as eight parts per billion, far beyond the sensitivity of most indoor air quality sensors.

NASA/JPL-CaltechSilica aerogel

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YesLicence type: Public Domain

The evidence, contained within an ice core, shows that in one location the ice sheet thinned by 450 metres — that’s more than the height of the Empire State Building — in just under 200 years.

This is the first evidence anywhere in Antarctica for such a fast loss of ice. Scientists are worried that today’s rising temperatures might destabilize parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the future, potentially passing a tipping point and inducing a runaway collapse. The study, published in Nature Geoscience, sheds light on how quickly Antarctic ice could melt if temperatures continue to soar.

“We now have direct evidence that this ice sheet suffered rapid ice loss in the past,” said Professor Eric Wolff, senior author of the new study from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “This scenario isn’t something that exists only in our model predictions and it could happen again if parts of this ice sheet become unstable.”

From west to east, the Antarctic ice sheets contain enough freshwater to raise global sea levels by around 57 metres. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is considered particularly vulnerable because much of it sits on bedrock below sea level.

Model predictions suggest that a large part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could disappear in the next few centuries, causing sea levels to rise. Exactly when and how quickly the ice could be lost is, however, uncertain.

One way to train ice sheet models to make better predictions is to feed them with data on ice loss from periods of warming in Earth’s history. At the peak of the Last Ice Age 20,000 years ago, Antarctic ice covered a larger area than today. As our planet thawed and temperatures slowly climbed, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet contracted to more or less its current extent.

“We wanted to know what happened to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet at the end of the Last Ice Age, when temperatures on Earth were rising, albeit at a slower rate than current anthropogenic warming,” said Dr Isobel Rowell, study co-author from the British Antarctic Survey. “Using ice cores we can go back to that time and estimate the ice sheet’s thickness and extent.”

Ice cores are made up of layers of ice that formed as snow fell and was then buried and compacted into ice crystals over thousands of years. Trapped within each ice layer are bubbles of ancient air and contaminants that mixed with each year’s snowfall — providing clues as to the changing climate and ice extent.

The researchers drilled a 651-metre-long ice core from Skytrain Ice Rise in 2019. This mound of ice sits at the edge of the ice sheet, near the point where grounded ice flows into the floating Ronne Ice Shelf.

After transporting the ice cores to Cambridge at -20C, the researchers analysed them to reconstruct the ice thickness. First, they measured stable water isotopes, which indicate the temperature at the time the snow fell. Temperature decreases at higher altitudes (think of cold mountain air), so they could equate warmer temperatures with lower-lying, thinner ice.

They also measured the pressure of air bubbles trapped in the ice. Like temperature, air pressure also varies systematically with elevation. Lower-lying, thinner ice contains higher-pressure air bubbles.

These measurements told them that ice thinned rapidly 8,000 years ago. “Once the ice thinned, it shrunk really fast,” said Wolff, “this was clearly a tipping point — a runaway process.”

They think this thinning was probably triggered by warm water getting underneath the edge of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which normally sits on bedrock. This likely untethered a section of the ice from bedrock, allowing it to float suddenly and forming what is now the Ronne Ice Shelf. This allowed neighbouring Skytrain Ice Rise, no longer restrained by grounded ice, to thin rapidly. 

The researchers also found that the sodium content of the ice (originating from salt in sea spray) increased about 300 years after the ice thinned. This told them that, after the ice thinned, the ice shelf shrunk back so that the sea was hundreds of kilometres nearer to their site.

“We already knew from models that the ice thinned around this time, but the date of this was uncertain,” said Rowell. Ice sheet models placed the retreat anywhere between 12,000 and 5,000 years ago and couldn’t say how quickly it happened. “We now have a very precisely dated observation of that retreat that can be built into improved models,” said Rowell.

Although the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated quickly 8,000 years ago, it stabilised when it reached roughly its current extent. “It’s now crucial to find out whether extra warmth could destabilise the ice and cause it to start retreating again,” said Wolff.

Reference:
Grieman et al. (2024) Abrupt Holocene ice loss due to thinning and ungrounding in the Weddell Sea Embayment. Nature Geoscience. DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01375-8

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey have uncovered the first direct evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet shrunk suddenly and dramatically at the end of the Last Ice Age, around 8,000 years ago.

University of Cambridge / British Antarctic SurveyTents at Skytrain Ice Rise

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Yes

As we age, our brain gradually atrophies, losing nerve cells and connections and this can lead to a decline in brain function. It’s not fully understood why some people appear to maintain better brain function than others, and how we can protect ourselves from cognitive decline.

A widely accepted notion is that some people’s brains are able to compensate for the deterioration in brain tissue by recruiting other areas of the brain to help perform tasks. While brain imaging studies have shown that the brain does recruit other areas, until now it has not been clear whether this makes any difference to performance on a task, or whether it provides any additional information about how to perform that task.

In a study published in the journal eLife, a team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge in collaboration with the University of Sussex have shown that when the brain recruits other areas, it improves performance specifically in the brains of older people.

Study lead Dr Kamen Tsvetanov, an Alzheimer's Society Dementia Research Leader Fellow in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, said: “Our ability to solve abstract problems is a sign of so-called ‘fluid intelligence’, but as we get older, this ability begins to show significant decline. Some people manage to maintain this ability better than others. We wanted to ask why that was the case – are they able to recruit other areas of the brain to overcome changes in the brain that would otherwise be detrimental?”

Brain imaging studies have shown that fluid intelligence tasks engage the ‘multiple demand network’ (MDN), a brain network involving regions both at the front and rear of the brain, but its activity decreases with age. To see whether the brain compensated for this decrease in activity, the Cambridge team looked at imaging data from 223 adults between 19 and 87 years of age who had been recruited by the Cambridge Centre for Ageing & Neuroscience (Cam-CAN).

The volunteers were asked to identify the odd-one-out in a series of puzzles of varying difficulty while lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, so that the researchers could look at patterns of brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow.

As anticipated, in general the ability to solve the problems decreased with age. The MDN was particularly active, as were regions of the brain involved in processing visual information.

When the team analysed the images further using machine-learning, they found two areas of the brain that showed greater activity in the brains of older people, and also correlated with better performance on the task. These areas were the cuneus, at the rear of the brain, and a region in the frontal cortex. But of the two, only activity in the cuneus region was related to performance of the task more strongly in the older than younger volunteers, and contained extra information about the task beyond the MDN.

Although it is not clear exactly why the cuneus should be recruited for this task, the researchers point out that this brain region is usually good at helping us stay focused on what we see. Older adults often have a harder time briefly remembering information that they have just seen, like the complex puzzle pieces used in the task. The increased activity in the cuneus might reflect a change in how often older adults look at these pieces, as a strategy to make up for their poorer visual memory.

Dr Ethan Knights from the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge said: “Now that we’ve seen this compensation happening, we can start to ask questions about why it happens for some older people, but not others, and in some tasks, but not others. Is there something special about these people – their education or lifestyle, for example – and if so, is there a way we can intervene to help others see similar benefits?”

Dr Alexa Morcom from the University of Sussex’s School of Psychology and Sussex Neuroscience research centre said: “This new finding also hints that compensation in later life does not rely on the multiple demand network as previously assumed, but recruits areas whose function is preserved in ageing.”

The research was supported by the Medical Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the Guarantors of Brain, and the Alzheimer’s Society.

Reference

Knights, E. et al. Neural Evidence of Functional Compensation for Fluid Intelligence Decline in Healthy Ageing. eLife; 6 Feb 2024; DOI: 10.7554/eLife.93327

Scientists have found the strongest evidence yet that our brains can compensate for age-related deterioration by recruiting other areas to help with brain function and maintain cognitive performance.

Now that we’ve seen this compensation happening, we can start to ask questions about why it happens for some older people, but not others - is there something special about these people?Ethan KnightsCDCWoman in purple and white floral shirt washing a carrot

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A new, independent field investigation into the aftermath of the Turkey-Syria earthquakes has found that a drive for profit has pushed all players within the construction industry to take shortcuts, with building stock primarily made of Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures, being the main cause of the casualties. 

Findings show that deficiencies were also recorded among even the newest building stock. This is despite established technical know-how, state-of-the-art building codes and rigorous building regulations. 

The longitudinal study report published here today by the Institution of Structural Engineers for EEFIT, was co-led by Cambridge's Professor Emily So, Professor of Architectural Engineering and Director of the Cambridge University Centre for Risk in the Built Environment (CURBE). Some of the findings include:

• The drive for profit pushes players within the construction industry to take shortcuts. The auditing and quality control mechanisms embedded in the legal and bureaucratic processes should be strengthened to ensure code compliance. The legalisation of non-compliant buildings through amnesties cannot continue. 
• Critically, despite established technical know-how, state-of-the-art building codes and rigorous building regulations, deficiencies in Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures were found even in the newest building stock. This demonstrates that seismic resilience is not only a technical problem in Turkey, but one that demands a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary dialogue, scrutinising the regulatory system, bureaucracy, the legal and political backdrop within which the construction sector operates in Turkey. 
• Building stock is primarily composed of Reinforced Concrete structures, which were therefore the main cause of the casualties. The team saw problems with such structures across their whole lifecycle from design to implementation and post-occupancy stages. The structures therefore did not withstand the seismic pressures.  
• A review of building stock and infrastructure is critical to understand risk levels for future earthquakes. Lack of publicly available data is a big problem in Turkey, hindering not only a robust inquiry into damage and associated building characteristics, but also reliably establishing the risk profiles for future events. 
• Debris management and demolishment practices have not fully recognised the potential of mid-/long-term environmental and public health implications. Field observations and contacts in the affected communities show that they are already affected by the poor air quality. The Compulsory Earthquake Insurance (CEI) is a system that was put in place in Turkey following the 1999 earthquakes to provide monetary reserves to fund the management of future disasters. The extent to which these funds have been used and how resources have been allocated remain unclear.' 

Read the full report and findings here.

Professor So says: “The 2023 Türkiye and Syria earthquakes were truly tragic, hitting an already fragile population, including migrants. Our field work and remote analysis revealed many issues, including the issue of non-compliant buildings with little seismic resilience. Building code compliance needs to be strengthened.” 

EEFIT - a joint venture between industry and universities - gathered a team of 30 global experts to assess the damage and develop suggestions to reduce future impacts and vulnerabilities. They studied the science, engineering and data related to the earthquakes including geotechnics, the structural and infrastructure impact, and the relief response and recovery.

 

 

The Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT), co-led by Professor Emily So, today publishes its findings and recommendations.

Our field work and remote analysis revealed many issues, including the issue of non-compliant buildings with little seismic resilience. Building code compliance needs to be strengthened.” Professor Emily SoEEFITA partially-collapsed building in the aftermath of the Turkey-Syria earthquakes in 2023.

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Their study, published in Science Advances, examined 3.5-billion-year-old rocks from western Australia in previously unseen detail and identified large quantities of a mineral called greenalite, which is thought to have played a role in early biological processes. The researchers also found that the seafloor vents would have seeded the oceans with apatite, a mineral rich in the life-essential element phosphorus.

The earliest lifeforms we know of—single-celled microorganisms, or microbes—emerged around 3.7 billion years ago. Most of the rocks that contain traces of them and the environment they lived in have, however, been destroyed. Some of the only evidence we have of this pivotal time comes from an outcrop of sediments in the remote Australian outback.

The so-called Dresser Formation has been studied for years but, in the new study, researchers re-examined the rocks in closer detail, using high magnification electron microscopes to reveal tiny minerals that were essentially hidden in plain sight.

The greenalite particles they observed measured just a few hundred nanometres in size—so small that they would have been washed over thousands of kilometres, potentially finding their way into a range of environments where they may have kick-started otherwise unfavourable chemical reactions, such as those involved in building the first DNA and RNA molecules.

“We’ve found that hydrothermal vents supplied trillions upon trillions of tiny, highly-reactive greenalite particles, as well as large quantities of phosphorus,” said Professor Birger Rasmussen, lead author of the study from the University of Western Australia.

Rasmussen said scientists are still unsure as to the exact role of greenalite in building primitive cells, “but this mineral was in the right place at the right time, and also had the right size and crystal structure to promote the assembly of early cells.”

The rocks the researchers studied contain characteristic layers of rusty-red, iron-rich jasper which formed as mineral-laden seawater spewed from hydrothermal vents. Scientists had thought the jaspers got their distinctive red colour from particles of iron oxide which, just like rust, form when iron is exposed to oxygen.

But how did this iron oxide form when Earth’s early oceans lacked oxygen? One theory is that photosynthesising cyanobacteria in the oceans produced the oxygen, and that it wasn’t until later, around 2.4 billion years ago, that this oxygen started to skyrocket in the atmosphere.

The new results change that assumption, however, “the story is completely different once you look closely enough,” said study co-author Professor Nick Tosca from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.

The researchers found that tiny, drab, particles of greenalite far outnumbered the iron oxide particles which give the jaspers their colour. The iron oxide was not an original feature, discounting the theory that they were formed by the activity of cyanobacteria.

“Our findings show that iron wasn’t oxidised in the oceans; instead, it combined with silica to form tiny crystals of greenalite,” said Tosca. “That means major oxygen producers, cyanobacteria, may have evolved later, potentially coinciding with the soar in atmospheric oxygen during the Great Oxygenation Event.”

Birger said that more experiments are needed to identify how greenalite might facilitate prebiotic chemistry, “but it was present in such vast quantities that, under the right conditions its surfaces could have synthesized an enormous number of RNA-type sequences, addressing a key question in origin of life research – where did all the RNA come from?” 

Reference:
Rasmussen, B., Muhling, J., Tosca, N.J. 'Nanoparticulate apatite and greenalite in oldest, well-preserved hydrothermal vent precipitates.' Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj4789

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Western Australia have uncovered the importance of hydrothermal vents, similar to underwater geysers, in supplying minerals that may have been a key ingredient in the emergence of early life.

MARUM − Zentrum für Marine Umweltwissenschaften, Universität BremenThe hydrothermal vent "Candelabra" in the Logatchev hydrothermal field on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at a water depth of 3300 m

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Pick almost any location in the eastern United States – say, Columbus Ohio. Every 13 or 17 years, as the soil warms in springtime, vast swarms of cicadas emerge from their underground burrows singing their deafening song, take flight and mate, producing offspring for the next cycle.

This noisy phenomenon repeats all over the eastern and southeastern US as 17 distinct broods emerge in staggered years. In spring 2024, billions of cicadas are expected as two different broods – one that appears every 13 years and another that appears every 17 years – emerge simultaneously.

Previous research has suggested that cicadas emerge once the soil temperature reaches 18°C, but even within a small geographical area, differences in sun exposure, foliage cover or humidity can lead to variations in temperature.

Now, in a paper published in the journal Physical Review E, researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered how such synchronous cicada swarms can emerge despite these temperature differences.

The researchers developed a mathematical model for decision-making in an environment with variations in temperature and found that communication between cicada nymphs allows the group to come to a consensus about the local average temperature that then leads to large-scale swarms. The model is closely related to one that has been used to describe ‘avalanches’ in decision-making like those among stock market traders, leading to crashes.

Mathematicians have been captivated by the appearance of 17- and 13-year cycles in various species of cicadas, and have previously developed mathematical models that showed how the appearance of such large prime numbers is a consequence of evolutionary pressures to avoid predation. However, the mechanism by which swarms emerge coherently in a given year has not been understood.

In developing their model, the Cambridge team was inspired by previous research on decision-making that represents each member of a group by a ‘spin’ like that in a magnet, but instead of pointing up or down, the two states represent the decision to ‘remain’ or ‘emerge’.

The local temperature experienced by the cicadas is then like a magnetic field that tends to align the spins and varies slowly from place to place on the scale of hundreds of metres, from sunny hilltops to shaded valleys in a forest. Communication between nearby nymphs is represented by an interaction between the spins that leads to local agreement of neighbours.

The researchers showed that in the presence of such interactions the swarms are large and space-filling, involving every member of the population in a range of local temperature environments, unlike the case without communication in which every nymph is on its own, responding to every subtle variation in microclimate.

The research was carried out Professor Raymond E Goldstein, the Alan Turing Professor of Complex Physical Systems in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), Professor Robert L Jack of DAMTP and the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, and Dr Adriana I Pesci, a Senior Research Associate in DAMTP.

“As an applied mathematician, there is nothing more interesting than finding a model capable of explaining the behaviour of living beings, even in the simplest of cases,” said Pesci.

The researchers say that while their model does not require any particular means of communication between underground nymphs, acoustical signalling is a likely candidate, given the ear-splitting sounds that the swarms make once they emerge from underground.

The researchers hope that their conjecture regarding the role of communication will stimulate field research to test the hypothesis.

“If our conjecture that communication between nymphs plays a role in swarm emergence is confirmed, it would provide a striking example of how Darwinian evolution can act for the benefit of the group, not just the individual,” said Goldstein.

This work was supported in part by the Complex Physical Systems Fund.

Reference:
R.E. Goldstein, R.L. Jack, and A.I. Pesci. ‘How Cicadas Emerge Together: Thermophysical Aspects of their Collective Decision-Making.’ Physical Review E (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.109.L022401

The springtime emergence of vast swarms of cicadas can be explained by a mathematical model of collective decision-making with similarities to models describing stock market crashes.

Ed Reschke via Getty ImagesAdult Periodical Cicada

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Yes